The Atlanta Women’s Foundation raised a record $1.75 million for local nonprofits last week at the group’s annual Numbers Too Big to Ignore fundraiser at the Georgia World Congress Center.
The AWF received a major donation from the Coca-Cola Foundation, which boosted the final figure. The moneys will go to local nonprofits in metro Atlanta that provide direct services to women and girls, including education, housing, mental and physical health services and workforce readiness training.
This year’s keynote speaker was Molly Shannon, the “Saturday Night Live” alum who has remained busy with film and TV projects in recent years. Her most recent projects include Max’s “The Other Two,” HBO’s “The White Lotus” and Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” And she is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next year.
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“I truly do love giving joy through comedy,” Shannon told WSB-TV anchor Karyn Greer on stage. “That part makes me handle the ups and downs. It’s not about me. That keeps me grounded.”
Shannon lost her mother and a sister in a car accident when she was four. “I felt like the rug was pulled out from under us,” she said. “I was so little. I couldn’t really believe that was happening. I went into a fantasy waiting for them to come back.”
Fortunately, her father Jim Shannon remained a constant in her life and they were close until his death in 2002 at age 72. “He had a real zest for life,” she said. “He was very silly. We’d go into a candy store. ‘Let’s pretend we’re blind.’ Then we’d knock over candy. We’d go into a department store and he’d undress mannequins and position them in a funny way. He was very silly.”
Her own character “SNL” character Sally O’Malley, she said, was inspired by her father, who had to learn to walk again after the car accident. “Sally’s limp is my dad’s limp,” she said. “That was me imitating my dad. Sally’s kick is me wishing my dad could kick off his leg braces. You think he’s weak but he’s a powerhouse, a survivor.”
Mary Catherine Gallagher, Shannon’s most famous sketch character with her own movie “Superstar” in 1999, basically channeled how Shannon felt as a young girl in an exaggerated way: accident prone and eager to please. Creating Gallagher was a great lesson for her to “really write from within. So many people related to her.”
Today, she is enjoying a renaissance of sorts, nabbing plenty of juicy roles including Bev Melon, the ambitious film producer in “Only Murders in the Building” with Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin.
The show’s producers knew her and wrote the character with her mind. Shannon as Melon embodies a funny combination of candy corn sweetness and diabolical ruthlessness.
“She’s very shrewd and it seems like she’s more into the money part of show business than the art,” Shannon said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution before the event.
Shannon’s Melon also gets to dress down Meryl Streep’s character Loretta Durkin, who is playing a mid-level TV actress dating Oliver Putnam (Short).
“I’m so glad Meryl went along with that,” Shannon said. “She was so wonderful. She’s naturally curious and we clicked. We just had fun that day.”
Shannon at age 60 is now an empty nester with two kids in college and has more time to choose different types of projects.
But she said “it’s always a hustle. I’ve always worked hard. I’m really grateful for the opportunities I get.”
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