Tracy Jamal Morgan (born November 10, 1968) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy television series Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2003 and played Tracy Jordan on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock from 2006 to 2013, both of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He also starred as Tray Barker on the TBS comedy The Last O.G.
Morgan was born on November 10, 1968, in Brooklyn and raised in Brooklyn's Marlboro Houses and Tompkins Houses in its Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. He is the second of five children of a homemaker, Alicia (née Warden), and James Morgan Jr IV, a musician who left the family when Morgan was six years old.
His father named him Tracy in honor of a platoon mate and friend who shipped off to Vietnam with him and was killed in action days later.
The target of bullies as a child, Morgan attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx. In 1985, during his senior year, he learned that his father had contracted HIV from hypodermic needle use. His father died in January 1987, aged 38.
Morgan married his girlfriend Sabina that year and dropped out of high school just four credits short of his diploma to care for his ailing father. Living on welfare, Morgan sold crack cocaine with limited success, but began earning money performing comedy on the streets after his best friend was murdered. He said in 2009: "He would say to me, 'Yo, Tracy, man, you should be doing comedy.' A week later, he was murdered. And that for me, that was like my Vietnam. I had my survival guilt when I started to achieve success. Why I made it out and some guys didn't."
Morgan embarked on a stand-up comedy career, successfully enough that he "finally moved to a nice community in [The Bronx neighborhood of] Riverdale, from a run-down apartment next to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx."
Early work in comedy and television
Morgan made his screen debut playing Hustle Man on the sitcom Martin. The character sold various items from the "hood", always greeting people with his signature "What's happ'n, chief?," and had a pet dog he dressed as a rapper. (Later, in the 2003 Chris Rock film Head of State, Morgan appeared as a man watching television, often questioning why they are not watching Martin.)
Morgan was also a regular cast member on Uptown Comedy Club, a sketch-comedy show filmed in Harlem that aired for two seasons, from 1992 to 1994.
Morgan joined the cast of the comedy series Saturday Night Live in 1996, and performed as a regular until 2003. Producer Lorne Michaels chose him over Stephen Colbert in the final round of auditions. Morgan's regular characters included the kindly but deluded vagrant Woodrow; outspoken apartment maintenance man Dominican Lou; lusty Astronaut Jones whose short skits ended with blunt sexual propositions towards beautiful extraterrestrial ladies; and Safari Planet host Brian Fellow who was enthusiastic but deeply ignorant about animals.
Post-SNL, 30 Rock, and film career
After leaving the cast of SNL in 2003, Morgan starred in his own sitcom, The Tracy Morgan Show, debuting in 2003. The show was subsequently canceled after one season. During the same year, he was featured on an episode of Punk'd in which his car was towed from valet parking.
From 2006 to 2013, Morgan was a cast member of the television series 30 Rock. He played the character Tracy Jordan, a caricature of himself. His work on 30 Rock was well-received, and he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 2009 Emmy Awards. He returned to the role in July 2020 for a reunion episode during the COVID-19 pandemic that was an upfront special for NBCUniversal. After 30 Rock, beginning in 2018, Morgan began starring in the TBS series The Last O.G. It ran for four seasons until 2021.
Morgan also returned to host SNL on March 14, 2009, and reprised his roles as Brian Fellow and Astronaut Jones. He later made a guest appearance on the 2011 Christmas show, hosted by Jimmy Fallon, and again hosted the show on October 17, 2015.
In addition to his television and comedy career, Morgan has acted in several comedy movies, alongside Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, and Will Ferrell. In Adam Sandler's film The Longest Yard, he plays a transgender inmate. He has also taken on a number of voice acting roles. He plays Spoonie Luv on the Comedy Central program Crank Yankers and as Woof in the animated series Where My Dogs At?. He also was the voice of Luis in the animated film Rio.
Morgan has had a number of solo stand-up specials produced throughout his career. One Mic was produced and aired on Comedy Central in 2002. His other comedy specials include Tracy Morgan: Bona Fide in 2014 and Staying Alive in 2017, released after he was severely injured in a 2014 car accident. Morgan made a surprise appearance at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 20, 2015, and was greeted with a standing ovation. He also hosted the first Spike Guys' Choice Awards, which aired on June 13, 2007.
Morgan acted in commercials for NFL 2K, NBA 2K, and NHL 2K, co-starring with Warren Sapp, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Roenick.
In July 2019, he hosted the ESPYs in Los Angeles.