SNL’s Originals: Love Stories, 50 Years Later

The Original SNL Cast: The Real-Life Love Stories Behind the Laughter, 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, on Oct. 11, 1975, Saturday Night Live , then called NBC’s Saturday Night , charged out of the tunnel and onto the cultural field, rewriting the playbook for comedy. The “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” quickly became household names, and some of them were already scoring big off-camera in the romance department. When the variety show premiered, Jane Curtin had just married television producer Patrick Lynch, who would later work behind the scenes at SNL, and the following year John Belushi wed his high school sweetheart, Judy. Here’s the highlight reel of the original cast’s real-life love stories.

Chevy Chase and Jayni Chase

Chevy Chase exploded in SNL’s rookie season, anchoring Weekend Update with a game-changing swagger. He left in 1976 to chase a movie career, and that path led him straight to Jayni Chase (née Luke). The two met while working on the 1981 comedy Under the Rainbow , Chase starred opposite the late Carrie Fisher, and Jayni was a production coordinator.

In a 1990 sit-down on The Barbara Walters Special, Jayni broke down the opening drive of their romance. “He flirted with me and pursued me, but I didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “Then, one day, I made a rather-flip remark to him, and I looked and saw that he was hurt by it. And I looked in those brown eyes, and I said, ‘Oh, I think there’s a nice guy there.’ And there is.”

After nearly two years of dating, they sealed the win in June 1982 with a wedding at their Los Angeles home. They went on to welcome three daughters: Cydney, Caley and Emily. Decades later, they were still side by side on Feb. 16, 2025, at 30 Rockefeller Center for SNL50: The Anniversary Special.

Jane Curtin and Patrick Lynch

The first female anchor of Weekend Update and a cornerstone of Coneheads lore, Jane Curtin said “I do” just months before SNL’s kickoff , marrying TV producer Patrick Lynch on May 31, 1975. In August 2023, Curtin told PEOPLE she initially hesitated to suit up for the late-night grind as a newlywed. “I had a life , a dog, a husband, an apartment with a little garden. It was a life I really enjoyed,” she said.

Curtin and Lynch were introduced two years earlier on a blind date at a hockey game, according to The Millerton News , a meet-cute straight out of a sports-page fairy tale. Lynch went on to win an Emmy for his work on the anthology series American Playhouse and later joined SNL as an art director from 2022 to 2025, earning two Emmy nominations for that run. (Curtin also earned two Emmy nominations for her SNL work.) The couple welcomed daughter Tess in 1983 and remained a team until Lynch’s death on April 21, 2025.

John Belushi and Judy Belushi-Pisano

On SNL, John Belushi delivered thunder with unforgettable characters like Samurai Futaba and the Blues Brothers’ “Joliet” Jake Blues. Offstage, he and Judy Belushi-Pisano were high school sweethearts who married in 1976, a year after the show’s debut.

“John told me, ‘You should probably break up with me because I want to be an actor and I’ll probably never make any money.’ But I always thought he’d do well,” Judy told PEOPLE in November 2020. “There was a closeness to the cast,” she added of the original ensemble. Judy parlayed her own creative chops into producing and acting, appearing in Animal House and The Blues Brothers. The pair shared big civic moments too , on June 17, 1980, they were in Chicago to receive a key to the city from Mayor Jane Byrne following the release of The Blues Brothers.

Their love story ended tragically when Belushi died at 33 from a drug overdose on March 5, 1982. Years later, Judy married producer Victor Pisano in 1990; they later divorced, per The Martha’s Vineyard Times. She died at age 73 from endometrial cancer on July 5, 2024, The New York Times reported.

Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder

SNL icon Gilda Radner , the force behind Roseanne Roseannadanna and Judy Miller , left the show in 1980 and soon met her future husband, Gene Wilder, on the set of the film Hanky Panky. Psychotherapist and close friend of Radner’s, Pain Katz, told PEOPLE that when she would visit Radner on the Hanky Panky set, she could tell between the two “there was a chemistry that was palpable and an electricity in the air.”

In her 1989 memoir, It’s Always Something, Radner wrote about love at first sight with Wilder: “My heart fluttered , I was hooked. It felt like my life went from black and white to Technicolor,” she recalled, per Biography. They married on Sept. 18, 1984, in France (it was Radner’s second marriage and Wilder’s third).

Radner died at 42 from ovarian cancer on May 20, 1989, The New York Times reported. In 1995, Wilder launched Gilda’s Club, a New York City–based support center for cancer patients and their families; today it’s known as the Red Door Community. He later married Karen Boyer in 1991, and they remained together until his death at 83 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease on Aug. 29, 2016.

Laraine Newman

A master of impressions and the brilliant mind behind Connie Conehead, Laraine Newman left SNL in 1980 and, more than a decade later, married fellow comedian and actor Chad Einbinder in 1991. They split in 2015 after almost 25 years of marriage.

Einbinder’s résumé includes appearances on ER, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI. He and Newman share two children: Hacks standout Hannah Einbinder and her sibling, Spike. Even post-divorce, the support game stays strong , in August 2023, Newman wished Einbinder a happy birthday on Instagram, calling him “one of the funniest people I know.” Newman was also on hand for SNL50: The Anniversary Special at 30 Rock on Feb. 16, 2025.

Dan Aykroyd

Original cast powerhouse Dan Aykroyd has long kept his entrepreneurial engine humming offstage. He visited Build Series to discuss Crystal Head Vodka at the Build Studio in New York City on Dec. 13, 2017.

From kickoff in 1975 to a golden-anniversary victory lap in 2025, the original SNL lineup , Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, John Belushi, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd , didn’t just change television. They lived big, loved big and left a legacy that still lights up Saturday night.