The Only Main Actors Still Alive From The First Saturday Night Live Episode

This article contains discussion of addiction.

2024 has been a really huge year for “Saturday Night Live,” the sketch comedy institution that operates out of Studio 8 in New York City’s famous 30 Rockefeller Center. With the show entering its 50th season during its September premiere — which brought Emmy-winning “Hacks” star Jean Smart on board as a host — and a major election this year providing plenty of material week after week, more eyes are on Lorne Michaels’ 90-minute late-night show than ever. Not only that, but Jason Reitman’s film “Saturday Night,” which focuses on the show’s humble beginnings and its messy, chaotic 1975 premiere, releases on October 11 (the anniversary of the “Saturday Night Live” series premiere). 

It feels like Michaels and company are pulling out all the stops this fall to celebrate the show — John Mulaney (one of the most popular hosts in recent memory) will star in an upcoming episode, The Lonely Island returned with its first digital short in six years, and Maya Rudolph is apparently set to play Vice President Kamala Harris as long as she needs to.

With all of that in mind, let’s rewind back to that series premiere. A handful of the people involved, including first-ever host George Carlin and original cast member John Belushi, have passed away since it aired — so who’s still around? Here are the five comedy heavyweights who appeared in the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” and are still alive today.

The youngest member of the first cast of “Saturday Night Live,” Dan Aykroyd ended up making a splash during his time on the show thanks to his impressions — he memorably did great renditions of everyone from Richard Nixon to Julia Child — and stints in sketches like the “Point/Counterpoint” sketch with Jane Curtin where he’d yell, “Jane, you ignorant slut” at his co-star for most of the runtime. (More on Curtin shortly!) So what has Aykroyd been doing since he got his start on “SNL?”

Well, there’s “Ghostbusters,” for one thing. Aykroyd co-wrote the movie with Harold Ramis – though Aykroyd reportedly had to be convinced to leave a lot of strange stuff out of the script as they prepared to start filming – and it’s no secret that, thanks to the combined efforts of Aykroyd, Ramis, and director Ivan Reitman, the movie was an enormous success that spawned a decades-long franchise. Aykroyd also starred in “The Blues Brothers” alongside John Belushi in 1980, adapting their popular “SNL” sketch for the big screen, not to mention the “Coneheads” movie that came from the sketch series too. He’s also starred in a variety of movies, such as “Trading Places,” “Spies Like Us,” “My Girl,” “Sneakers,” and “Tommy Boy.”

These days, Aykroyd spends time promoting his spirit Crystal Head Vodka (yes, the bottle is shaped like one, in case you were curious), and he appeared in some of the modern “Ghostbusters” films, including 2024’s “Frozen Empire.” He’s also still one of the executive at the Ghost Corps. production banner at Sony Pictures, which oversees all the “Ghostbusters” movies. 

To be perfectly honest, if you’ve ever read “Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live” by Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Chevy Chase is the clear villain of “Saturday Night Live.” Yes, he’s a funny performer — there’s a reason he made it onto the show in the first place — but he also definitely made a habit of bullying his co-workers during his brief run on the show (he left during the second season of “SNL” after pioneering the “Weekend Update” format in the inaugural season). Chase also did win two Emmys for his time on the show, both in 1976 for performing and writing, so clearly, the guy is a walking contradiction.

In any case, after “Saturday Night Live,” Chase went on to appear in classic comedies like “Caddyshack,” “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “Fletch,” and “¡Three Amigos!,” just to name a few. From 2009 to 2014, Chase played the cantakerous bigot Pierce Hawthorne on “Community,” although, true to form, his colleagues on that series didn’t like him very much either. Apparently, that didn’t really bother him, so take that as you will. 

Jane Curtin may have spent a lot of her time during the first season of “Saturday Night Live” being called an “ignorant slut,” but make no mistake: Curtin’s sharp intellect and comedic timing made it quite clear that she was anything but. As the season’s resident “straight-woman,” Curtin made a habit of letting the show’s more outlandish performers bounce off of her, but her steely approach to the performance made her reactions just as funny as whatever the other person was doing, and she was also one of the first anchors — and first female anchor — of the long-standing segment “Weekend Update,” replacing Chevy Chase when he exited the show (she first hosted alongside Dan Aykroyd, who was followed by Bill Murray). 

After leaving “SNL” in 1980, Curtin stuck mostly to small-screen projects, working on shows like “Kate & Allie” (which won her an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series) and “3rd Rock from the Sun.” She would also reprise an “SNL” role as Prymatt Conehead in the “Coneheads” movie. In recent years, she’s shown up in episodes of everything from “Broad City” to “The Good Fight” (reprising her role as Judge Pamela Farley from “The Good Wife”), and “The Conners.”

Garrett Morris made history as one of the first cast members of “Saturday Night Live,” but he was also the first Black cast member in the show’s history, paving the way for future standards like Eddie Murphy, Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, and long-time cast member Kenan Thompson. Unfortunately, because Morris appeared on a sketch comedy show, he ended up playing a series of racial stereotypes, like Dominican baseball player Chico Escuela (whose whole bit is that his English isn’t very good) or the “streetwise” buddy of Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin’s “Wild and Crazy Guys.” (This problem wasn’t unique to Morris; as Murphy once told TV Guide, per The Ringer, he felt that producer Jean Doumanian “tried to ‘Garrett Morris’ me.”) 

Morris, alongside his fellow original cast member Jane Curtin, left “SNL” in 1980 and worked on movies like “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” and “The Census Taker” (he also reunited with Curtin and Dan Aykroyd for a small role in the “Coneheads” movie in 1993). Throughout the 1980s, Morris also appeared on “The Jeffersons” and played a recurring role on “Hill Street Blues,” and as recently as 2023, he made a guest appearance on the sitcom “How I Met Your Father.”

Along with the late, great Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman was one of the three female trailblazers on “Saturday Night Live,” and she made her mark with a series of increasingly outlandish characters, from Connie Conehead to Christie Christina, not to mentiom Sherry, a stereotypical Valley girl. Unfortunately, Newman has been open about the fact that she struggled with drug addiction during her time on “SNL,” and she left the show in 1980 along with a handful of her colleagues.

After “SNL,” Newman appeared in single episodes or short arcs on shows like “Laverne & Shirley,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Friends,” “7th Heaven,” and, most recently, the comedy series “Ghosts,” and she has also lent her voice to the “Despicable Me” films, starting with the second entry in the franchise in 2013 (as well as voice performances in Pixar movies like “WALL-E,” “Finding Nemo,” and “The Incredibles”). Newman now has a young showbiz star of her own: Her daughter is Hannah Einbinder — Jean Smart’s co-star on “Hacks.”

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).