Who was Tina Fey’s dad Donald Henry Fey? Actress reveals late father was enamored with SNL co-star Fred Armisen

Tina Fey was enamored with someone from the Saturday Night Live cast— and it was not his daughter.

Speaking with Amy Poehler on her new podcast, Good Hand, the veteran comedian recalled her father, Don, being a huge fan of Fred Armisen when she worked with him on SNL. "He was Fred's biggest fan," Fey said.

Fey's father, Donald Henry Fey, wrote grant proposals for universities when she was growing up. He was of German, Northern Irish, and English ancestry and served in the Korean War. He died of heart failure in October 2015 at the age of 82, Today reported at the time.

"He was a great dad and a talented artist and writer, but I also think of him as a great American — he served his country in Korea, he served his city as a fireman, he took his kids regularly to art museums and historical sites," Tina Fey told the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time.

She went on:

"When he taught me how to play baseball he would say to me, 'If you throw like a girl again, we're going in.' (I took it in the spirit it was intended.) He read poetry and history and newspapers. He was an informed patriot. The Republican Party should have tried to clone him."

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Tina Fey says her dad was such a huge fan of Fred Armisen, that he would sketch fan art: Read more

During her podcast segment with longtime friend Amy Poehler, Tina Fey revealed that her father visited the set of SNL when the cast was rehearsing Weekend Update, back when it was one of Armisen's "first few shows" as a cast member.

"Fred was in a costume for some other sketch — he was in a tuxedo and my dad had not met him yet," she recalled. "And he just came up to my dad and was in a tuxedo. And just came up to my dad in character, just going, 'This is Rainbow Room? I look for Rainbow Room?'"

Fey, who worked on SNL as a writer and cast member for almost a decade, went on:

"I can't tell the story because I can't. I shouldn't be doing this accent, but Fred, I guess, can do it."

Tina Fey also revealed that her dad loved meeting Armisen. "It was so funny," she recalled. "He loved it. He loved it."

She also divulged that her father's love for Armisen prompted him to sketch out fan art:

"He used to paint little portraits, little caricatures of Fred as like Fericito, as Prince," the Date Night actress recalled. "He would mail them to me, and I would give them to Fred. And I think Fred still has one."

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Fred Armisen worked on the show as a cast member for 11 years, from 2002 to 2013.