Tracy Jamal Morgan (born November 10, 1968) is an American actor and comedian known for his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for his role as Tracy Jordan on the TV series 30 Rock. Morgan was born in the Bronx and raised in a housing project in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Morgan's father named him Tracy in honor of a 17 year-old platoon-mate and dear friend who shipped off to Vietnam with him and was killed in action only days later. Tracy earned money performing comedy on the streets after his best friend was murdered. Tracy said in 2009, "He would say to me, 'Yo, Tracy, man, you should be doing comedy.' A week later, he was murdered. And that for me, that was like my Vietnam. I had my survival guilt when I started to achieve success. Why I made it out and some guys didn't." Morgan embarked on a standup comedy career, successfully enough that, he said, "I finally moved to a nice community in [the Bronx neighborhood of] Riverdale, from a run-down apartment next to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx...." Morgan made his screen debut on Martin playing Hustle Man. The character sold various items from the "hood," always greeting people with his trademark "What's happ'n, chief?" and had a pet dog that he dressed as a rapper. In the 2003 Chris Rock film Head of State, Morgan appeared as a man watching television, often questioning why they are not watching Martin.
Morgan was also a regular cast member on Uptown Comedy Club, a sketch-comedy show filmed in Harlem that aired for two seasons, from 1992 to 1994. He was on the HBO show Snaps in 1995.
He appeared twice on HBO's Def Comedy Jam. Morgan joined the cast of comedy show Saturday Night Live in 1996 and performed as a regular until 2003. He returned to host on March 14, 2009 and reprised his roles as Brian Fellow and Astronaut Jones. He also made a guest appearance on the Saturday Night Live Christmas show in December 2011, hosted by Jimmy Fallon.
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