For her portrayal of Maroney, Krakowski was nominated four times for the
Screen Actors Guild Award
nominations, winning one.
Character development
In Tina Fey's original pilot script for 30 Rock, Jenna was named "Jenna DeCarlo", and The Girlie Show was titled Friday Night Bits with Jenna DeCarlo.[1] In the unaired pilot for the show, Rachel Dratch, a former SNL cast member,[2] played the role of Jenna. In August 2006, executive producer Lorne Michaels announced that Dratch would be replaced as Jenna. Later in the month, NBC announced that Krakowski had replaced Dratch,[3][4][5] and that the character was renamed "Jenna Maroney".[6]
Krakowski was credited as a main cast member,[7] and the character appeared in all but 10 episodes.[8]
Fictional biography
Jenna was born Yustrepa Gronkowitz on February 24, 1969 in
Florida Panhandle. She also is revealed to have a strong Southern accent that she suppresses. In "Queen of Jordan 2: Mystery of the Phantom Pooper", it was revealed that she was conceived in a Florida bathroom. Jenna says that the day she was born her mother was chain-smoking on a curb. Her ethnic origin is that of an Ashkenazi Jew (with an extra Y chromosome), as revealed through a DNA sample, which Jack mistakenly thought belonged to Kaylie Hooper. Jenna's father, Werner (or possibly Travis) Maroney was a burger server in suburbanSanta Barbara, before leaving her mother, Verna (Jan Hooks), for a "curly-haired surfer" named Roberta — which hurt her. In "Secret Santa", she reveals to Jack "Danny" Baker that her mother forced her to sit on every mall Santa
's lap in Bakersfield in an attempt to find him. As a young girl, Jenna competed in child pageants and was on Weight Watchers at age six (though the math was too much and she eventually turned to cigarettes). She performed Christmas carols inside Sears as a distraction while her mother shoplifted. Jenna's entire church group was eaten by a bear, which Jenna witnesses while playing dead. It is mentioned that she has a sister who died (and that Jenna felt pushed aside and forgotten at her funeral).
Jenna did not attend her high school reunion because the boat she was educated on sank. It is mentioned that her college was tipped over by
three-ways, one with Tom and Roseanne Arnold (long after the couple was divorced), and another with two of the Backstreet Boys, in which she claimed she was "not really necessary." Jenna also claimed to have had a relationship with Mickey Rourke, and his over-the-top attempts at killing her (by catapulting her into the Hollywood sign, throwing her onto the field during the Superbowl, with a double-edged sword, etc.) are a recurring joke on the series. However, in the series finale, she breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience that she has never actually met Rourke; despite this, in the episode "Murphy Brown Lied to Us
", Rourke does actually try to kill her by sending her a flower bouquet full of spiders, which instead land on Tracy.
most renowned for his performances as Jenna. She met him at a Jenna Maroney impersonator contest in which she came in fourth and he placed first. Before they were married it was revealed that she is so attracted to him because he gives her the opportunity to date herself. Throughout the series, during their relationship they are shown performing various, unusual sexual acts and rituals.
Fictional career
Jenna started off in theater, notably in
Broadway musical Evita. Jenna also starred in a pilot for a police drama named Good Looking
, in which she played the protagonist Alexis Goodlooking, whose special skill was being good at looking for clues.
Jenna was the star of The Girlie Show, a sketch comedy series that was created by her friend
TGS with Tracy Jordan
. This makes Jenna furious because she is no longer the star of the show, and believed that Liz gave in to Jack's demands. In addition she finds herself at the mercy of Tracy's antics, the writing staff's constant pranks, and Jack's constant avoidance of her (his reason is that she is not promotable for the show). But, despite all this, Liz assures Jenna that her future on the show is safe (Lemon forces Jack to sign a contract stating he will never fire Jenna in the pilot).
When she is not working on TGS, Jenna stars in a series of low-budget films, including her first starring role,
Lifetime
TV movie Sister, Can You Spare a Breast? She also played a criminal profiler named Jill St. Ferrari in an original Lifetime miniseries, Hushed Raping.
Jenna is also a singer and possibly a rapper, having once participated in a
Crab Catchers". Liz and Jack realize that, since Florida is the swing state in the 2012 election and almost everyone in Florida is loyal to Jenna, Jenna could be the one to decide whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is voted president. They subsequently try to sway Jenna's vote (Jack lobbying for Romney and Liz for Obama). In season seven, Jenna has a hit single, "Balls", which despite extensive airplay, she is outraged to discover earned her very little money due to music piracy
.
Jenna also performs on stage, once appearing in Mystic Pizza: The Musical, an off-Broadway musical version of the film Mystic Pizza. As her role required her to eat 32 slices of pizza on stage each week, Jenna gained a large amount of weight at this time. She took advantage of it, however, by becoming a spokesmodel for Enormé, a perfume for plus-sized women that had the slogan "Enormé: Make him chase the chunk." The writers of TGS also took advantage of Jenna's weight gain, writing plus-sized sketches and giving her a catchphrase, "Me want food!" Eventually, Jack tells Jenna that on television an actress can't be "in between" fat and thin, so she has to either lose 30 pounds or gain 60, and Jenna loses the weight again.
After the cancellation of TGS, Jenna decides to become a dramatic actress, starting with a guest spot on
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, despite her name not being called and Alice Ripley
