Alec Baldwin fell “in love” with comedienne Tina Fey and was desperate to date her from the moment they met.
The 58-year-old actor makes the confession in his upcoming memoir, Nevertheless, in which he admits he has fallen for the charms of many of his comedy leading ladies, but none more so than “irresistible” Will & Grace star Megan Mullally, and his 30 Rock castmate Tina.
In an excerpt for Vanity Fair magazine, Alec recalls the first time he laid eyes on Tina on the set of Saturday Night Live, on which the then-single star was a guest host.
“When I first met Tina Fey – beautiful and brunette, smart and funny, by turns smug and diffident and completely uninterested in me or anything I had to say – I had the same reaction that I’m sure many men and women have: I fell in love,” he gushes. “Tina was then the head writer at Saturday Night Live, and I was hosting that week’s show…”
Alec remembers asking a crewmember if Tina was single, and was dismayed to discover she was already married – and even more perplexed by her choice in husband, Jeff Richmond, who was present on set.
He continues, “Jeff is diminutive. Tina describes him as ‘travel-size.’ When I saw him, I thought, ‘What’s she doing with him?'”
However, Alec later discovered Jeff was the real catch in the couple: “When I ended up working with the two of them years later, on 30 Rock, of which Tina was writer, producer, and star, I changed that (thought) to ‘What’s he doing with her?’,” he writes. “Jeff, who was the talented composer and music supervisor on 30 Rock, is as loose and outgoing as Tina is cautious and dry…”
Alec, who is now happily married to wife Hilaria, the mother of his three young kids, has remained close to Tina and Jeff since the sitcom wrapped in 2013, and he will always have fond memories of his time on set, branding the gig, “the best job I ever had”.
