Tina Fey Pays Touching Tribute to Her Late Father: He Was a 'Great American'

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There is nothing like a daughter’s love for her father.

Tina Fey’s father Donald H. Fey died on Oct. 18 due to heart failure. He was 82. In his obituary, which first ran on Sunday, Oct. 25, the actress paid tribute to her “great dad.”


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"He was a great dad and a talented artist and writer, but I also think of him as a Great American," Fey, 45, shared with Philly.com.

"He served his country in Korea, he served his city as a fireman, he took his kids regularly to art museums and historical sites. When he taught me how to play baseball he would say to me, 'If you throw like a girl again, we're going in.' (I took it in the spirit it was intended)."

“He read poetry and history and newspapers. He was an informed patriot. The Republican Party should have tried to clone him,” she concluded.

This isn’t the first time the comedian has publically acknowledged her father, who she referred to as “handsome but terrifying” in her 2011 memoir, Bossypants.


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“When my face was slashed, my dad held me on his lap in the car to the hospital, applying direct pressure with the swift calm of a veteran and an ex-fireman,” she wrote in a chapter titled “That’s Don Fey.” “I looked up and asked him, ‘Am I going to die?’ ‘Don’t speak,’ he said. So, yeah, he’s not the kind of guy who wants to watch people eat bugs on Survivor. It’s so clear to me how those two things are related.”

Bindi Irwin recently paid an emotional tribute to her father "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin on Dancing With the Stars. To see the beautiful dance watch the video below.