But the achievement was more notable even than that: Sweeney was also the first out actor with a regular role on broadcast television ever.

And what did he get for his bravery? Despite the fact that Sweeney had performed one of SNL's bonafide break-out characters (a parody of a particularly vapid Nancy Reagan), he was unceremoniously fired, along with most of the rest of a cast that also included Robert Downey, Jr., Joan Cusack, and Randy Quaid, at the end of a season that was widely regarded as a failure.

As an out gay actor at the height of the AIDS crisis, Sweeney didn't work again for ten years.

But Sweeney was a survivor, eventually finding work as his first love, a comedy writer, usually with his partner, Lanier Laney; the two wrote the 1989 cult classic Shag (set in South Carolina, where the couple now live) and worked on MADTV and the outrageous animated comedy show Tripping the Rift. Sweeney also found occasional acting work, most notably guesting on Seinfeld.

AfterElton.com has long tried to talk to Sweeney, who played an important role in gay pop culture history, but he's been extremely difficult to track down. Finally, a friend told a friend that we wanted to tell his story, and he got in touch with us at long last.

He definitely didn't disappoint. His story is a fascinating one.

AfterElton: How did you first get involved with Saturday Night Live?

Terry Sweeney: I was a writer [on the show] first. When I first became a writer I was, like a lot of people, just working in a restaurant, catering, and then my friend said that Saturday Night Live was accepting people, you know, looking for writers. I had no agent or anything so I said, “Oh, well maybe I should apply.” I mean, it’s a dream for a lot of comedy writers. And he said, “Don’t bother. It’s the last day, it’s too late.”

I didn’t believe that, and I stayed up all night, wrote a bunch of sketches, and then the next day I went to the Carnegie Deli, and I ordered five or six sandwiches and potato salad and all kinds of things, and I went to the studio guard and I said, “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” Now this is all before 9/11, so you could do that. And they said, “Lunch? Well, I’m not bringing it up!” Then they said, “Take the elevator up to the blah blah blah.” So I go to the elevator, I get off the elevator and someone is standing there, and I say, “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” And somebody else said, “Well, bring it in, it’s right down there.”

And then I got to the desk, and I said “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” “Oh well maybe the producer ordered it, the office is right this way.” And I went in, and she said, “I didn’t order lunch.” And I said, “I know, these are my sketches, I’m a writer and I said, 'Please read them. Just read them, and lunch is on me. What do you think?'”

AE: Was this the famous [post-Lorne Michaels] producer Jean Doumanian?

TS: Yes, I went through Jean Doumanian, and she was pretty scary.

AE: So at this point did you see yourself solely as a writer or did you see yourself as a comic?

TS: I was funny. I was acting. I had gone to auditions, I’d done, you know, some stand-up comedy, but I didn’t really like the stand-up comedy world, maybe because I was gay. And it was such a straight macho kind of grisly business, you know? I didn’t really have the courage to do it back then. Now I’d been the star of my high school talent show. I had a lot of confirmation that I was funny and people loved me, but that’s different from being in the big city.

AE: At this point, were you out as a gay person and did that contribute to anything you wrote for the show?

TS: I was out. I don’t think I was ever "in" after college. That was it, so I never hid anything. Yeah, I’d always put something gay in there, always something crazy. I actually made fun of other things. Like I did Billy Graham singing Christian telegrams.

Next Page! How Al Franken suggested Terry become Nancy Reagan!

AE: A few years ago, I interviewed Paula Pell, who was the head writer on the show, and I was surprised to hear they had a staff of 16 writers and four of them were gay, including Paula who is a lesbian. It surprised me because I never thought the show had a strong gay sensibility, if there is such a thing. Mostly it seems like it’s written for 13-year-old straight boys, especially lately. But I’m curious, was there a gay presence at all back then in the writing staff?

TS: No, just me. I’m not kidding. It was just me.

AE: How was that received?

TS: It was much more challenging when I came on the show as a performer. It’s a different thing. I got along with people great. I met so many funny people and had a ball with people I worked with. But there was never an issue of, am I gay or not gay? I think the show was struggling because Lorne [Michaels] had left and they were so busy trying to prove that they could do the show without him, so there was a lot of tension. When I was on the show, because you said, people write for 13-year-old straight boys, it was very hard for me to get people to write for me. They would act like, “I just don’t know what to write for a gay person. Like, what do I do?”

They would not say, “Here’s a host of a game show” -- they would give it to Randy Quaid. At the time at the reading room, Randy Quaid would have a pile of sketches piled high, and I would have maybe two sketches. One that I wrote and one that someone else put me in something, and I’d have a tiny little pile. And the same thing for the black girl [Danitra Vance, SNL's first black female], almost nothing. So that was kind of heart-wrenching.

TS: Yes, yes, Lanier [Laney, who later joined the SNL writing staff], my lover and I wrote together most of the material. Al Franken would write for me too. Nancy Reagan. Because you know he would write political stuff, and he talked me into doing Nancy.

AE: Really?

TS: Yeah, he said, “You know you look like Ron Reagan Jr.” And then he said, “I think you could look like Nancy too because Ron looks like Nancy!” So we tried it, and I did look amazingly close.

AE: That must have been a high point of the year and frankly of your career. I mean, if anything is remembered from that year, it’s probably your Nancy Reagan impression.

TS: Well, thank you, thank you. I had a lot of fun doing it. After the show, a lot of people got fired and stuff, so I did a whole show called It’s Still My Turn because her book was called My Turn. And I would go around the country performing as her, doing a one-man, one-woman show. And that was a big success, and it ended up off-Broadway. So that was a lot of fun. She was a great person to spoof.

AE: How often do people come up to you and ask you to do the impression today?

TS: Sometimes people will still just go, “You’re Nancy Reagan!” And I’ll just give them that frozen smile and that glazed look and go, “And you are, who?” (Laughs)

“I know who I am. I just don’t remember who you are.” But they love it. They like me to be really bitchy. People more recognize me because I was a guest star on Seinfeld. There are so many Seinfeld fanatics, and the reruns play all the time. So actually the Seinfeld stuff is what people see a lot.

AE: I want to jump back just a bit. How did you make the segue from SNL writer to performer?

TS: I went off and then I actually got a job, I was a script analyst at Paramount in New York. I read books, plays, everything and I would decide whether I thought it should be made into a movie, which I thought was hilarious. Because I thought, you know you just hired me off the street, you don’t know anything about me. But I thought I have to have good taste, I am a gay person, so you are lucky there.

But one of the things I learned, I taught myself how to write a movie because I read so many. I couldn’t believe all these people have agents. "They have agents? This person has an agent?" So at that time I was dating different people, I ran into Lanier, I mean we actually met at a bar. I would go to private men’s clubs with black walls. [Laughs] Countless guys in cowboy hats and very little else on, but we fell in love, and he was in a troupe called the Bess Truman Players or something, and I joined them at his request. He said, come on, get on stage, you’re so funny and I said, “No, no I won’t do that. I’m just going to be a writer.”

But I went on stage and I did about ten shows. A reviewer came from the New York Times, and they gave me such a rave review, comparing me to Lily Tomlin, all this stuff, so Saturday Night Live sent someone down, a talent scout and they spotted me. And, umm…and I auditioned for the show and I got it.

AE: This was the famous return of Lorne, this year?

TS: Yes, that’s right.

AE: I remember reading that you were openly gay, that was a big deal. And I’m curious did you make a specific decision? What did Lorne think? And what was that like being the focus of all that attention?

TS: It was intense because you know at that time it was circa 1986, and Rock Hudson was on that cover of everything because he had AIDS, so there was an AIDS hysteria around. People didn’t know how you got AIDS. The tone in the whole country was like, “What is it? Who’s got it?” I felt it was really important because I had friends that were sick or dying.

[But] you have to sign a "morals" clause to be on TV. It’s part of your contract, so I thought, "Well, I’m a gay person and if anyone has a problem with that, including you, Lorne, I don’t have to take this job. I’m not going to hide it, I’m not going to pretend I’m looking for the right girl, I just haven’t met her yet or my fiancé died in a plane crash, I’m not going to do any of that. I’m just going to tell the truth."

So he was ok with it. Lorne has a million gay friends. I don’t know how the network felt about it and the people above him, but he was supportive. But people were nervous about it. Sometimes people wouldn’t talk about it, like they’d rather not go to that subject even though I said, “No it’s ok, go into it.” There was publicity about it. I mean I ended up in People Magazine. Lanier and I, I think, we were the first gay couple that were covered like that.

It was rough. More the process, more the being in like the frat house, like being in the boys club.

Next Page! Is SNL anti-gay?

AE: So at that point there was still nobody else who was your ally? Who was willing to write for you and stick up for you? Or was it more mixed than that?

TS: No, I think there was a gay writer on the staff, and he would not write for me. And to this day I think he’s gay, but he’s not out.

I got along with my castmates and had fun with them, some of them, um, no, but there were not a lot of allies. Except for Franken and [Franken's writing partner, Tom] Davis and one or two writers.

AE: I’m not looking to trash Lorne Michaels, but I’m curious to know your opinion. The show has been around for something like 37 years now, you’re still the only out gay cast member ever, and Lorne Michaels has been at the head for 32 of those 37 years. And we’re in a decade now where gay people are really coming to the fore, culturally speaking.

TS: Right.

AE: It seems like such an obvious thing to do, to include a gay player. That it would make the show better and more open and more inclusive and contemporary and hip and more edgy. And yet it still hasn’t happened. And I’m curious why you think the show has been so reluctant to embrace where so many other comedies are willing to go? It's like they're stuck in the 70s.

TS: Well, first of all, I think you have to look at where actors are coming from. I mean, after that particular decade, it was rough for gay people, unless you wanted to play someone who was dying of AIDS or was unhappy and killing themselves or dying in the hospital. So it wasn’t funny. I mean, I didn’t work for a long time after Saturday Night Live, I couldn’t get hired. Ellen didn’t come out or Rosie didn’t come out until after their shows were already a success. I mean people were just not saying they were gay. Actors did not want to talk about it.

So in that respect, they thought I was a career-killer and taking on an extra burden. People would go, “Look at me as an actor, don’t look at me as a gay actor.” Everyone just wanted to prove themselves, and still do, on their merits. And you see people on shows playing gay people and you know they are gay and you’ve heard they are gay, are still not dating, not going to any parties, not on the red carpet with anyone. I mean, Glee and Modern Family, you’re talking about things that just came about. I mean, things are changing. I think there is this metamorphosis now. Getting rid of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, things are opening up for gay people. I don’t think Lorne turned anybody down because they’re gay. I just don’t think [the cast members] play that card.

The 1985-86 cast, including Sweeney, third from right

AE: Yeah, but also he could make it a point…

TS: He could make it a priority. He could go looking for somebody, he really could. It’s more toward men. I met Gilda Radner, and she said she had to bake cakes so they would write sketches for her. All the women always had to maneuver and manipulate and to work extra hard, like three or four times as hard, as any of the male performers. Because sketches weren’t there for them. I think you said it best, it’s a 13-year-old guy kind of thing, back then anyway.

AE: By being first, do you ever feel if you sort of threw yourself on top of a grenade for everyone else? That you kind of got screwed? Neil Patrick Harris is great, and all these people who've come out are great, and I don’t want to disparage their great achievements, but do you ever feel like if you had to do everything over again maybe you would have done things differently? Or are you just proud of playing a role in all of these things coming to be because of what you did?

TS: I’m very proud of it because to this day I will meet someone who will say, “You know, I was living in Iowa when that came out” or “I was living in Alabama when I read about you in 1986. And I saw you and your lover and you were so open and comfortable and talking about yourselves and happy. It gave me hope.” I think a lot of people saw that People Magazine article, a lot of people read about me. It was important that somebody that was visible said, “Hey, there is a gay person on the earth.” Doing whatever I do, but I’m out there and visible, and look, look at me, look at me, see me, see all of us.

I got some awards from PFLAG, I got an Uncommon Hero Award. I got a lot of great things from the gay community, but considering that people were dying at that time, it just seemed like such a disrespectful thing to deny it. I was so happy to be alive and healthy and blessed. I’m still with Lanier to this day, you know. So I’m still with my partner, over 20 years together. I mean, that’s amazing, and I’m in love and I love my life and I’m having a great time here. I wrote on Mad TV. I went back to writing, I made all my money writing, you know?

AE: You mentioned to me earlier that you didn’t get work for ten more years after SNL.

TS: Well, what happened, I sold a movie [the cult classic Shag] and some movies don’t get made for years, and suddenly the movie got made. So I got money from a movie that I had written before, and then I lived off a two-movie trust fund. And then I’d go, “What else could I do?” Then I’d write articles or lists, you know I have a wine column here in the paper, The Happy Wino. So I actually I love my life, I have a great time. I feel very fortunate. It would be nice sometimes to say, “Oh, I could play that part, you know, on Will & Grace.” Sometimes you’ll think, “Oh that’s a great part I’d love to play it,” but that’s just an actor thing. I would love to be on Glee. I know Jane [Lynch] and I’m so happy for her success, and she’s out.

So I think it’s fun that people are out now, and it’s exciting, and if they want to have a baby, that’s good for them. I can never understand that exactly. Do you have kids?

AE: No, no I totally agree with you. Although you used to be able to admit that proudly in gay circles, but you can’t do that anymore because so many of us are having kids.

TS: Oh, I know. It was one of the few perks. I know I’m going, “What? You have babies?” I know a gay couple, and they have twins, and I’m going, “What? Why would you do such a thing?” But that’s their dream and I’m not knocking it. I’m happy, I’m thrilled.

But you know I did what I had to do at that time. It was the right thing to do. No matter what the consequences were.

Next Page! Sweeney's place in gay history!

Terry and his partner Lanier Laney (left)

AE: One of things that I think is important to do on our website is to give people some sense of gay history, because nothing drives me crazier than when I hear these gay Republicans talk as if the world is the way it is now, that it just sort of spontaneously happened. If nobody had done anything, people would just have become spontaneously more accepting, and it has nothing to do with ACT UP or those early "crazy" angry activists or people like you who stuck their necks out and kind of got screwed. And I just want strangle them because nothing ever just "happens." You fight tooth-and-nail for every inch!

TS: It’s cause and effect. It’s because you put yourself forward and maybe you’ll be hit, maybe you’ll be fired, maybe you’ll never get a job, but you take that risk because it’s important to do. Especially in that moment, it was so important because gay people were so vulnerable and just because of the times, people said, “Oh no no no no no! No, not so fast!” And you’re right, I’m glad you mentioned ACT UP. I had friends in that. They themselves had AIDS and were on the street, day in and day out until the day they died, trying to get rights for gay people and for AIDS patients. You’re right. I feel the same way.

AE: The point is, I want people to understand that the things they take for granted today, the fact that they can swoon over Chris Colfer or Neil Patrick Harris, it's because of folks like you. It’s not a casual connection, it’s a very direct and immediate connection. You're the reason why.

TS: Thank you.

AE: No, thank you. But before I let you go, tell me what you're working on today.

TS: Well, I have three movies that are out in Hollywood. They are looking at them. I don’t want to say, “This movie this,” or “That movie that.” It won’t matter if people know about them until they are in the theater. But I am writing a book about my life. Kind of like, more like a funny version, more David Sedaris kind of version of all the different stories and things that have happened. So I am working on that.

And sometimes I’m looking to audition for things in New York again on Broadway. Doing that stuff. So I’m kind of coming back. I want to perform again. Maybe it’s Glee and Modern Family. I’m still young enough or strong enough, so why not go out into the world and do something and not consider, “Well that’s it. Those were my years. The salad days are gone.” People are going to go, “What’s salad days? What does that mean? So he doesn’t eat salad anymore? What is he saying?”

AE: If you're ever feeling blue, you should consider an online presence. You really touched a lot of people back in the 80s, and I'm sure plenty of people would like to tell you that.

TS: That’s a lovely suggestion. And thank you for saying that.

[Editor's note: Sure enough, Sweeney took our suggestion, launching a Facebook profile. And here's a link to his wine column.]