Lorne Michaels CM , LL.D (born November 17, 1944 in Toronto, Ontario) is a television producer and writer best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.

Early career
Michaels was born Lorne Michael Lipowitz to a Jewish family in Toronto; he moved to Los Angeles from Toronto in 1968 to work as a writer for Laugh-In and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show. During the late 1960s and early 1970s Michaels wrote for a number of Canadian TV series and specials such as Barris & Company in 1968 and The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour in 1971. He was a cast member of the Canadian That's Show Biz in 1970.

Saturday Night Live
In 1975, Michaels created the TV show Saturday Night Live. The show, which is filmed live in front of a studio audience, immediately established a reputation for being cutting edge and unpredictable. It became a vehicle for launching the careers of some of the best-known comedians in North America, including: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell. Originally the producer of the show, Michaels was also a writer and later became executive producer. He occasionally appears on-screen, as well. SNL has been nominated for more than 80 Emmy Awards and has won 18. It has consistently been one of the highest-rated late-night television programs.

Michaels has been with SNL for all seasons except for his hiatus in the early 1980s (seasons 6-10).

Other work
Michaels started Broadway Video in 1979, producing such shows as The Kids in the Hall.

In the 1980s, Lorne Michaels appeared in an HBO mockumentary titled The Canadian Conspiracy about the supposed subversion of the United States by Canadian-born media personalities, with Lorne Greene as the leader of the conspiracy. Michaels was identified as the anointed successor to Green.

Michaels has been executive producer of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien since it debuted in 1993.

Honours
In 1999, Michaels was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. In 2002, Michaels was made a member of the Order of Canada for lifetime achievement, and awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2004, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the first non-American to earn this honour. Speaking at the awards ceremony, original Saturday Night Live cast member Dan Aykroyd described Michaels as "the primary satirical voice of the country."

  As producer, except as noted

Gilda Live, (1980) (writer and producer)
Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)
¡Three Amigos!, (1986)
Wayne's World, (1992)
Coneheads, (1993)
Wayne's World 2, (1993)
Lassie, (1994)
Tommy Boy, (1995)
Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
Black Sheep, (1996)
Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, (1996)
A Night at the Roxbury, (1998)
The Ladies Man (2000)
Enigma (2001)
Mean Girls, (2004)