page_title: List of 30 Rock characters
section_title: Colleen Donaghy
hierarchical_section_title: List of 30 Rock characters / Main characters' relatives / Colleen Donaghy
caption_attribution_description: English: Elaine Stritch at the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday (Sept. 12) night
context_page_description: 30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey, which aired on NBC. The series takes place behind the scenes of a fictional live sketch comedy series, also airing on NBC; the name "30 Rock" refers to the address of the GE Building, where NBC Studios is located. The series has an ensemble cast consisting of 14 regular cast members: Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, John Lutz, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, and Maulik Pancholy.
context_section_description: Colleen Donaghy (née Murphy) (Elaine Stritch) is Jack's overbearing, demanding mother who lives in a Florida retirement home. According to Jack, the Murphy family are "a bunch of mud farmers and sheep rapists".  He appears as if he wants nothing to do with her although deep down, he loves her. Colleen first appeared in season 1, episode 21; she is critical of Jack's abilities, and hesitant to show him affection. In season 3, episode 20, Colleen reveals that her ex-husband (Jim Donaghy) left her in 1957 and returned in 1959. Jack was conceived in 1958 during Colleen's affair with Milton Greene.
  Colleen has nagged Jack his whole life, even blaming him for John F. Kennedy's death and for his father leaving. When Jack's collie, Pop, was accidentally run over by the postman, Colleen left him to die in the street. She even tried to send Jack to Vietnam when he was 12 years old in order to make a man out of him. Colleen embarrassed him by having him play "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his flute in front of his hockey team.
  Colleen's cold and stern demeanor is contrasted by her behavior at Christmas. After Jim abandoned the family, Colleen would acquire mountains of toys for her children each Christmas, despite the family's poverty, by in exchange for providing sexual favors to the [fictional] Frederick August Otto Schwarz, III. Unaware of the transaction, Jack resented his mother hosting Mr. Schwartz and her infidelity toward his father. Colleen additionally gave her children unique Christmas traditions and fables that Jack assumed were standard holiday practice, such as Mrs. Claus hanging the children's stockings. He is in his 50s when Liz Lemon causes him to realize the truth and gain a new appreciation and love for his mother and her holiday practices.
  Despite rarely having a good thing to say about anyone, Colleen takes an instant liking to Liz, mistaking her for Jack's actual fiancée, Phoebe. When he tells her that it isn't Liz whom he was marrying, Colleen's response is "Why the hell not?" It is during a heart-attack-causing argument with Colleen that Jack realizes that he does not love Phoebe, and calls off the engagement. No indication is made that Colleen is aware of the later temporary accidental marriage of Jack and Liz. Although fond of Liz, Colleen nevertheless delights in manipulating the Lemons into a resentment-fueled argument between them.
  Colleen dies of a heart attack in "My Whole Life Is Thunder" during a visit to New York to spend time with Jack, attempting to guilt him and seemingly depriving him of her approval literally up to her last breath. Her last words to Jack are "I just want you to be happy," which Jack hears as "I just want you to be 'happy'" and takes as sarcasm and "one last twist of the knife." Jack and Liz subsequently discover in "Florida" that Colleen spent her final years in a cohabitational lesbian relationship and — much more shockingly — was happy and well-liked in the couple's retirement community, where she was seen as kind and loving. Jack is sent into a tailspin by the revelation that his mother actually wanted him to be happy, which leads to him re-evaluating his life and career in the finale.
  Appears In: "Hiatus", "Ludachristmas", "Christmas Special", "The Natural Order", "The Moms", "Christmas Attack Zone", "Meet the Woggels!", "My Whole Life Is Thunder", and in still photographs in "Florida".
caption: Elaine Stritch portrays Colleen Donaghy, Jack's mother
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