Jean Doumanian

Jean Doumanian (born ca. 1934 as Jean Karabas in Chicago, Illinois) is an American producer.

Doumanian is probably most well known for her short reign as producer of Saturday Night Live between November 1980 and March 1981. Her style and critiques angered many of the SNL staff, which soon led to the return of producer Dick Ebersol, and later Lorne Michaels.

Saturday Night Live

Main articles: History of Saturday Night Live (1980–1985) and Saturday Night Live (season 6)

Show creator Lorne Michaels resigned as producer of SNL at the end of its fifth season and the entire cast and writing staff followed. Michaels later claimed that leaving SNL at the end of the fifth season would be the biggest error of his life. Doumanian, who had been an associate producer during the first five seasons of the show and produced a special for Michaels in 1978, was one of the few who stayed around. She was offered Michaels' job running SNL and took over the show for the 1980 season, hiring a completely new cast and new writers (many people refused to go near the show because of loyalty to Michaels). The show was plagued by problems from the start.

The first episode, renamed Saturday Night Live '80, appeared on November 15, 1980. Charles Rocket was groomed by Doumanian to be the show's biggest star, while Eddie Murphy, who would become the most successful member of that season's cast, received little air time. The new season was quickly panned by the critics.

Doumanian nearly lost her job in a battle with NBC executives over a sketch she wanted to insert into the December 6, 1980 episode. The sketch, named "The Virgin Search", portrayed NBC executives looking for a woman who's never had sexual intercourse to be SNL's newest castmember. The main objection to the sketch was the sequence where the NBC executives visit a convent and meet a nun (played by Gail Matthius) who'd had sex with Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello). NBC executives threatened to ban this episode and air an episode from Lorne Michaels' tenure as executive producer if Doumanian didn't back down. The controversial sketch eventually aired two weeks later, on December 20.

On the February 21 episode, Rocket said "fuck" on air at the close of an episode. In addition to firing Rocket, NBC soon fired Doumanian, replacing her with Dick Ebersol.

Woody Allen

Doumanian had a nearly 40-year friendship and professional relationship with Woody Allen. He is said to have called the SNL studios regularly during her brief tenure there, and cast member Ann Risley had had a bit role in Stardust Memories. She taught him how to dance in the 1960s, defended him through various scandals, and he saved her life in 1992 when she choked on a piece of bread.^{[citation needed]}

After leaving SNL, she was an executive producer for several of his films:

• Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
• Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
• Deconstructing Harry (1997)
• Celebrity (1998)
• Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
• Small Time Crooks (2000)

She was also a producer for the 1994 made-for-television film Don't Drink the Water and the 1997 documentary Wild Man Blues, a film about a tour by Allen's jazz band.

During production of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion in 2000, Doumanian shocked Allen with an announcement that he had but 48 hours to find alternative funding for the film. In May 2001, on the advice of his financiers, Allen filed a lawsuit against Doumanian and her partner Jacqui Safra, claiming their production company had skimmed $12 million of profits off of the movies. She countersued, claiming he had cheated them out of $19 million. The two sides settled in 2002, but the friendship was shattered.

Broadway

In 2002, Doumanian was a producer for a Broadway revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, which was nominated for a Tony Award. In 2004, Doumanian was a producer of the Broadway premiere of the play Democracy by Michael Frayn.

External links

• Jean Doumanian at the Internet Movie Database