During its first 50 seasons, Saturday Night Live has welcomed legendary actors, superstar athletes, and notable politicians. But for one memorable night in 1977, Lorne Michaels turned the show over to an 80-year-old amateur. {listen}
The only video I could find of Miskel Spillman on Saturday Night Live
An unemployed Oregonian, a divorced mother of three, a freshman college student, the governor of South Dakota and an 80-year-old grandmother from New Orleans all wanted the same thing: to host “Saturday Night Live.”
On November 19, 1977, the five finalists of the show’s first — and, ultimately, only — Anyone Can Host contest took the stage in Studio 8H alongside the evening’s host, actor and screenwriter Buck Henry, and introduced themselves to America. They were vying for a chance to guest host the Christmas episode two weeks later.
Henry joked that two-thirds of the 150,000 entries the show had received had to be burned “for obscenity and weirdness.” In the end, the public voted via snail mail for a person who embodied perhaps the exact opposite of both — Miskel Spillman, an elderly widow whose first plane ride ever brought her to New York City to stand beside her fellow finalists.
As “SNL” prepares to air its 1000ths episode, the tale of the show’s most unlikely presenter and the only non-public figure to ever take on the task is incontrovertible proof that – despite the contest’s name – not just anybody can host the Saturday night show. {read}