AFTER LORNE
LORNE MICHAELS HAS a rule, whenever he finishes another long season of Saturday Night Live, to take off the month of June. He might go to his home in Amagansett, or the blueberry farm he owns in Maine, and usually to Europe, where last summer he had a few work obligations in the middle of his break. In London, he stopped by the Savoy Theatre to pose on the red carpet with Tina Fey at the British premiere of Mean Girls the musical, which he produced, and made time for dinner at the River Cafe with Jimmy Iovine, Paul McCartney, Dr. Dre, and Bruce Springsteen, who was in town to play Wembley Stadium. During dinner, Iovine told a story about how, in 1975, when Michaels was gearing up for SNL's launch, Iovine was a few blocks away at the Record Plant studio working with Springsteen on Born to Run.
After that, it was on to Paris in July, for the Olympics, which NBC was using as a soft launch for its extravagant run-up to the 50th anniversary of SNL, Michaels's fiefdom since its founding.
Michaels went to see Simone Biles in the women's team-gymnastics final-a comedy GOAT watching an aerial one-and ran into his longtime friend Mick Jagger at a party hosted by LVMH. At some point, Michaels decided to try to get Springsteen to mark 50 years of Born to Run by performing at SNL's 50th-anniversary blowout, which is happening the weekend of February 14. So when Steven Spielberg called to see if Michaels might join him on his boat in the south of France, where he was tooling about with Bono, the Edge, and Springsteen, Michaels, ever the producer, decided to seize the moment: He asked Spielberg to coax Springsteen into playing the show, invoking his other rock-and-roll friend to convince him. "Well, you know, Mick and I both think he should do it," Michaels said.
This story is from the February 10-23, 2025 edition of New York magazine.
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This story is from the February 10-23, 2025 edition of New York magazine.
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