Alan Stuart "Al" Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American politician, comedian, actor, and writer. He is currently the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He became well known in the 1970s and 1980s as a writer and performer on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live. After several decades as a comedic actor and writer, he became a prominent liberal political activist. Franken was first elected to the United States Senate in 2008 in a narrow victory over incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman, and then handily won re-election in 2014 over Republican challenger Mike McFadden. Franken is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party.
Born in New York City, Franken moved to Minnesota when he was four but he later went back to the East Coast and attended Harvard College. With his writing partner Tom Davis, with whom he had developed an interest in improvisational theatre in high school, he was hired as a writer for SNL at its inception in 1975. He worked on the show as a writer and performer until 1980, and returned from 1985 to 1995. After leaving SNL, he wrote and acted in movies and television shows. He also hosted a nationally syndicated, political radio talk show, The Al Franken Show, and wrote six books, four of which are political satires critical of conservative politics.