Highland Park's Rachel Brosnahan Wins 2nd Straight Golden Globe

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Highland Park native Rachel Brosnahan was awarded her second consecutive Golden Globe award Sunday night for her role in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." The following day, NBC announced she would make her debut as a host of "Saturday Night Live" later this month.

Brosnahan, 28, was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Highland Park from the age of 4. She became the first actress to win two consecutive Golden Globe awards for TV comedy since Tiny Fey in 2008 and 2009 for her show "30 Rock." Between 1999 and 2005, Sarah Jessica Parker won the award four times in seven nominations for "Sex and the City," including three straight wins.

The 2008 Highland Park High School grad also won the 2018 Primetime Emmy award for lead actress in a comedy series for her title role on the Amazon show, where she portrays Miriam “Midge” Maisel, a 1950s New York mother who becomes a stand-up comic after her husband leaves her.

Back in 2015, Brosnahan was nominated for another Emmy as a guest actress in a drama for her breakthrough role on "House of Cards." Her character, Rachel Posner, was originally supposed to disappear from the show after the first two episodes, but she so impressed the show's creator that her story arc was extended through the first three seasons of the Netflix series.

Before heading to New York University to study drama, Brosnahan's acting teacher and manager was Carole Dibo, founder of the Actors Training Center in Wilmette.

"None of this is very surprising to me, I just knew that she had it in her," Dibo told WMAQ. "She's one of the hardest workers."

Dibo helped land her first role in the 2009 Michael Bay horror movie "The Unborn" after she became frustrated with minor roles in high school productions. ("I had to lie to my parents, and I missed my AP Calc final," she told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2013, "But I caught the bug.")

Growing up on the North Shore, Brosnahan enjoyed snowboarding and competed on the school wrestling team, she told the Los Angeles Times. She remembered HPHS drama teachers, including the late Tim Conway and Scott Shallenbarger, as "an incredible team," according to the Daily Herald. After her second Golden Globe win, Shallenbarger told WBBM he remembered Brosnahan as one of the most hardworking students in the program and he uses her story to remind students that working in the arts "is about the soul, not the ego."

Bosnahan will host the first episode of Saturday Night Live of the year on Jan. 19.

Starting 2019 on a ✨marvelous✨ note. #SNL pic.twitter.com/EzjcqJgo8B
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) January 7, 2019