Jane Therese Curtin is an American actress and comedian.
Jane Therese Curtin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second of three children born to Mary Constance (née Farrell) and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency. Her maternal ancestry is Irish, while the paternal, Curtin, ancestry is Irish, originally from Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. Curtin has one younger brother, Larry Curtin, who lives in South Florida; and an older brother, John J. "Jack" Curtin (d. 2008). Curtin is a cousin of actress and writer Valerie Curtin. Her uncle was the radio personality Joseph Curtin.
She was raised Roman Catholic, and grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She graduated from Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Newton in 1965. Curtin earned an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City, class of 1967. She then attended Northeastern University from 1967 to 1968 before dropping out of college to pursue a career in comedy.She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF. In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, The Proposition, and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin, John Forster, Judith Kahan, and Fred Grandy, in 1974.
