Biography
Legacy. This was the word rattling through Arthur Grein's mind on the day of his Saturday Night Live audition, a day he would come to acknowledge as holy, one that would surpass his own birthday in terms of significance. Without SNL, he was no one. Without SNL, he was nothing more than his mother's son, a lost opportunity, the end of what very well could have been a legacy. The days he spent walking the halls of Rockefeller Plaza shaped him. They were the start to a life he'd been waiting for the past twenty years, the start to something more than waiting in his mother's shadow, the boy pacing the floors and wondering when it might be his turn. He wasn't Sheila Grein's son any longer, he was a man of his own making. He wasn't a legacy. He was himself. He would surpass her, he was confident a time would come when she would be known for her association with him and not vice versa. The future was all there was. He was born again, someone new, and the past became irrelevant.

In 1977, in the interval between seasons of a show that had won her critical and public acclaim, twenty five year old Sheila Grein quietly married her thirty seven year old therapist and gave birth to his son in a New York City hospital. The marriage wouldn't last, nor would her fame, but her love for her son never faltered. When her time on Saturday Night Live ended in 1980, the young comedienne moved Artie back to her hometown of Boston to be closer to her parents, bidding the bright lights of the city what she thought would be a permanent goodbye. What she wanted for Artie was a picturesque childhood in suburbia, much like the one she had. She dreamt of his future in the manner most parents did; she saw him as a doctor, a lawyer, maybe even a world class painter, but never as a comedian. The thought never occurred to her, not even as Artie grew older and became infatuated with her past, the years she'd spent on the road, the hat she'd hung up when she chose to return to university after her fame came to an end. Though his mother was now a drama teacher at a local high school, only occasionally pestered for autographs by those who remembered the woman she'd been, Artie saw her as a juggernaut. What she'd been was everything he wanted to be. Beloved for doing what meant more to him than anything: making people laugh.

By the time his audition came around, he felt ready to a near supernatural degree. He'd gotten his foot in the door because of his last name, but that wouldn't be why Lorne Michaels would remember him after he left the room. Nepotism would not be the hand that fed Artie forever, he was too hungry for more. Over the years, this hunger would help and hinder him in equal measures. Saturday Night Live, the dream he'd chased for so long, became the sanctuary he left too soon. The films he hoped would catapult him to stardom did very little for him in the long run, and the offers dried up as quickly as they began streaming in. Left to his own devices, with nothing else on the horizon but bit parts in B movies, Artie could only wonder if he would continue to follow in his mother's footsteps, if the only place left for him was Boston.

His bags were still unpacked when Lorne Michaels came knocking again, and he couldn't help but allow himself to be caught in the whirlwind that came next: Late Night, the Emmys, the Tonight Show, a life he'd never once dared to dream of. His career was everything to him, and in the same way he'd spent his formative years preparing for SNL, he came to fixate on becoming even more in the days ahead. He forgot the failed marriage, forgot the depression that had plagued him and continued to plague him, he focused on one thing and one thing alone: a legacy. His own legacy, the story people would tell about him once he was gone, the photos that would sit beside Johnny Carson's, the dream that had come to be his reality, the dream he would never let go of again.

But as it turned out, his life was more than the Tonight Show, and self medicating his depression caught up with him eventually. In the summer of 2015, after a series of debacles that left the public questioning his health, Art posted a letter announcing his extended visit to a "rehabilitation facility," in a thinly veiled confession of his alcohol and cocaine abuse. The response from the public was warm, and by the time he returned to the show, he felt better than ever about where his life was headed. Whether or not that positivity is his new normal remains to be seen.

Media Perception
The general public love Artie Grein, but the media's split in two different directions. Some consider him to be the pinnacle of "prom king comedy," what they perceive as vapid, soulless, and a steep downgrade from the days of Carson. Others think he's exactly what the new, social media obsessed world calls for, by way of disposable, mindless, but mostly fun antics. His fanbase aren't really looking for the next sharp, politically savvy mind - which is why they've taken to his version of the Tonight Show so well, boosting it to the late night #1 spot on a regular basis.

As a person, his drunken antics prior to entering rehab were only quietly reported on. This was assumed to be part of a strange goodwill the media have built up to Grein despite not necessarily liking his work; he's well known in the industry for being almost painfully nice. But talk of addiction came up in a more prominent way when he entered rehab in June 2015, for obvious reasons, and has since been a source of speculation and pointed accusations amongst various outlets.