Jan Hooks dead; the onetime 'Saturday Night Live' cast member was 57

Jan Hooks, who created some of "Saturday Night Live's" most memorable impersonations over a five-year run, has died, according to various reports. She was 57 and lived in New York City.

NBC News confirmed Hooks' death with her representative and reported it on "Nightly News." No details about her cause of death were released, although some reports said Hooks had died following a long illness.

Hooks parlayed her memorable "SNL" run into a film and TV career -- "Designing Women" and "3rd Rock from the Sun," most notably. But her impressions of Sinead O'Connor, Nancy Reagan and Diane Sawyer, once seen, could never be forgotten.

Hooks was part of one of the more sensational TV controversies of 1991 -- she left "SNL" for the CBS hit, "Designing Women," where an ongoing battle between Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and star Delta Burke had broken out into the open and straight onto the pages of the tabloids. Burke was fired, and Hooks -- who replaced Jean Smart -- was hired, as was Julia Duffy. End of battle.

She was a standout on HBO's "Not Necessarily the News" long before "SNL," too.

But it was "Saturday Night Live" that made Hooks a star. She joined in September 1986 -- one of two new female members (Victoria Jackson, the other) of what was to become an "SNL" rogues gallery. Phil Hartman and Hooks were both veterans of the Groundlings, the improv company that has been one of TV's great breeding grounds for comics. Hartman was a new cast member at the time, and eventually became one of Hooks' friends. (The other new cast members that season were Dana Carvey and Jackson.)

They joined incumbents Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz and Dennis Miller, and stand-up comics A. Whitney Brown and Kevin Nealon.

As Hooks told Tom Shales in his "SNL" history, "Live from New York": "The show changed my life obviously, but I have horrible stage fright. And with all these, you know, stand-up comics who I love -- you know, Dana Carvey, and Dennis and Kevin and all these people -- you know they wanted their shot, they wanted to get in there and do it, but I was one of the ones that between dress and air was sitting in the corner going, 'please cut everything I'm in. . . . ' "

After "SNL" and "Designing Women," Hooks briefly found a second career at the NBC series, "3rd Rock from the Sun," and -- as true-blue "Simpsons" fans know -- as Apu's spouse, Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon.

Hooks was born in Decatur, Georgia, in 1957.

By Verne J Gay

Verne.Gay@newsday.com@vernejgay

Verne J Gay is the television critic