The 5 Oldest People to Host ‘Saturday Night Live’
When Jean Smart hosted the season premiere of Saturday Night Live this year at the age of 73, she briefly became one of the five oldest hosts in the show’s long history. Let’s hope Smart enjoyed it while she could because another comedian recently knocked her off the list, meaning an astonishing five people older than 73 have anchored 90 minutes of live comedy on a Saturday night.
Here are the AARP-approved hosts who made the list…
Betty White (88)
Lots of fans have tried online petitions to get their favorite stars booked as SNL hosts, but only one has ever worked — the 2010 Facebook campaign to draft 88-year-old Betty White into service. “When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host Saturday Night Live, I didn’t know what Facebook was,” White confessed during her opening monologue. “And now that I do know what it is, I have to say it sounds like a huge waste of time.”
Despite White’s age, she turned in a killer performance. The Mary Sue called her episode “the best SNL episode of the 2000s.”
Miskel Spillman (80)
During SNL’s third season, the show invented an “Anyone Cast Host” contest and of course, viewers voted for the most unlikly candidate: 80-year-old grandmother Miskel Spillman.
During her monologue, John Belushi confessed that he’d slid Spillman some pot. Oh no! “Your joints overwhelm even an experienced drug user like myself!” assistant host Buck Henry told Belushi. Laraine Newman was worried as well, asking if the doobie contained any of Belushi’s usual rhino tranquilizer.
Ruth Gordon (80)
In the days of the show’s blackest humor, Al Franken and Tom Davis pitched a sketch to the 80-year-old star of Harold and Maude in which she’d keel over dead halfway through, according to Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. Unsurprisingly, Gordon rejected the idea.
Proposed bits like that one soured the entire week, with Gordon walking off the stage and straight out of 30 Rock the second the live show ended.
Steve Martin (77)
Every time Martin hosts these days, he moves higher up the list. When he headlined with Only Murders pal Martin Short in Season 48, he was a chipper 78. How do you know you’re getting old? How about when your monologue consists of you and your comedy buddy writing each other’s eulogies?
“I’ll always be haunted by Marty’s last words,” Martin said during his imagined tribute. “Tesla auto pilot, engage.”
“Oh, Steve, you bland, overrated, white-haired son of a bitch,” returned Short. “I know Steve is looking down on us right now because he always looked down on everybody.”
Martin Short (74)
Short was “only” 72 when he co-hosted with Martin a couple of years ago, but he leapfrogged Smart when he hosted last month at the age of 74. The former cast member finally joined the Five-Timers Club, but he’s still way behind Martin’s 16 hosting gigs.
A 40-year history with the show doesn’t make hosting any easier. “Just age-old anxiety and fear,” said Short. “It’s live television. Anything can happen.”