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- In 1975, Mr. Davis, brilliant at improvisational comedy, and Mr. Franken, a whiz at plotting funny sequences, became two of the first writers on a new show called “ Saturday Night Live,” which has lasted 37 years.
Chevy Chase was always Chevy Chase in everything he did on “Saturday Night Live.”. Aykroyd was a true sketch performer. He’d throw himself into his impressions, such as Julia Child, and he ...
In 1975, Davis got his big break as one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live where he and Franken also performed together. The duo wrote the screenplay for and appeared in the film One More Saturday Night, and had brief appearances in Trading Places and The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.
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Thomas James "Tom" Davis (August 13, 1952 - July 19, 2012) was an Emmy Award-winning American writer, comedian and author.
In Saturday Night Live, he is best known for his former partnership with Al Franken, as half of the comedy duo "Franken & Davis." He also provided the voice calling into an interview with Dan Aykroyd's Jimmy Carter as the youngster that Jimmy Carter talked down from a bum trip. Davis created the SNL sketches "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber" with Steve Martin, "Nick The Lounge Singer" with Bill Murray, and "The Continental" with Christopher Walken, and "Coneheads" with Dan Aykroyd. He and Al Franken created the memorable "Pong" sketch.
Davis had also been involved with work outside SNL that involved cast members and work on SNL. He was reunited with his partner Al Franken in the 1983 film Trading Places, a film that starred SNL actors Eddie Murphy and Dan Akyroyd, in which Franken and Davis play a couple of tipsy passenger train luggage handlers. Davis also starred in the SNL-based film Coneheads, playing a Conehead who is condemned alongside Beldar on Remulak. Ten years earlier, Davis was a voice actor playing a customer of Beldar's on an animated special of Coneheads in which Dan Akyroyd, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman all reprised their SNL roles. The animated special was produced by Rankin-Bass, best known for the 1964 Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
On July 19, 2012, nearly one month shy of his 60th birthday, Tom Davis died of head and neck cancer in New York City which he was diagnosed with since 2009. He was survived by his wife, Mimi Raleigh, a veterinarian of Mount Kisco, NY, whom he married in 1991, was separated from in 1999, but resumed as his wife before his death in 2012 after more than a decade of his relationship with photographer Lindsay Brice, of New York City. He is also survived by his mother, Jean Davis, of Minnetonka, MN, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins of the Minneapolis area who were like siblings to him until early 2012. Davis has been attributed in the press with the term "deanimation" in reference to death, but "deanimation" was an allusion to his friend, Timothy Leary, who used the term extensively leading up to his own death in May 1996. The next SNL episode to air following his death, a rerun of the May 12, 2012 episode, was dedicated to him with a still photo shown in his memory after Weekend Update.
Jul 20, 2012 · Tom Davis was one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live. He worked with the show for over 20 years, finally leaving in 2003. He passed away on Thursday from throat and neck...
4 days ago · Saturday Night — director Jason Reitman’s dramatized retelling of the 90 minutes leading up to Saturday Night Live ... We also get a glimpse of writers Al Franken and Tom Davis figuring out ...
Aug 13, 2014 · According to Bill Murray, Davis saved him in a writers meeting by offering to write an ending for his “Nick the Lounge Singer” sketch – which Murray claims “reversed his fortunes on the ...
Jul 20, 2012 · The world lost a true comedy original on Thursday when Tom Davis, one of the original writers of "Saturday Night Live" who helped shape the show's iconoclastic tone, died of cancer at the young age of 59. "He was there from the beginning. No one saw things the way that Tom did," Lorne Michaels said in the wake of his passing.
