JANE CURTIN - WHAT I KNOW NOW

ALMOST 50 YEARS AFTER MAKING HER TV DEBUT ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, THE ACTRESS REVEALS HER SECRETS TO LONGEVITY-AND CONFESSES THAT SHE NEVER ACTUALLY WANTED TO BE FAMOUS

- GILLIAN TELLING

When Jane Curtin became famous as one of the original cast members on Saturday Night Live in 1975, it brought her a scary amount of attention. "People were almost afraid of us, like they'd start shaking when we walked into a room," says Curtin, now 75. "It made [me] so uncomfortable." Later, when she starred on the sitcoms Kate & Allie, which ran from 1984 to 1989, and 3rd Rock From the Sun (1996 to 2001), fame became more manageable. "Fans seemed to want to take care of meespecially when I did Kate & Allie," she recalls. "I'd have these old firemen come up to me and say, 'Hey, how ya doing, Allie?' I'd be like, I'm great, thanks!"" Despite the pull of low-key living, the Massachusetts native still loves acting.

She's currently onscreen in Jules, an endearingly quirky film about a group of senior citizens who befriend an alien who crash-lands in one of their backyards. "It's such a wonderful movie," Curtin says. "It's one thing to see Indiana Jones cracking his whip on film at 80, but it's rare to see a group of people just living their lives at 80." Here, Curtin, who was interviewed July 7, shares her tips for nurturing a happy marriage (she and her husband, TV producer Patrick Lynch, celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary this year), aging gracefully and turning dreams into reality.

Have fun, but don't let the party destroy you.

"I had just gotten married the year I got Saturday Night Live, so I had a life-a dog, a husband, an apartment with a little garden. It was a life I really enjoyed," says Curtin, who avoided the wild partying of some of her peers. "John Belushi [her fellow original SNL castmate, who died from a drug overdose in 1982], obviously he could party with the best of them, but the next day these guys were just so miserable. Plus, the 90 minutes on the show were so exciting and adrenaline-pumping, I felt all the other stuff was self-indulgent and seemed hard."