This softly pretty comic writer-performer is only one of many women whose talent was largely wasted on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" (on which she was featured from 1989-94). Sweeney was best known for her popular recurring character Pat, an annoying, androgynous, bespectacled person whose gender remained a mystery. The character was even the centerpiece of a feature, "It's Pat!" (1994), which was afforded only a regional release before being shunted off to the video shelves.

While still working at her day job as an accountant at a film studio, Sweeney began performing with the L.A.-based improv