Jerry Seinfeld

This article is about the comedian. For the character, see Jerry Seinfeld (character).

Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld at the 1997 Emmy Awards
Born	Jerome Seinfeld
Years active	1984 - present
Spouse	Jessica Sklar

Jerry Seinfeld (born Jerome Seinfeld on April 29, 1954 in New York City, New York) is a Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning Jewish American comedian, actor and writer. He is often described as an observational comedian. He is best known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself, Jerry Seinfeld in the long-running situation comedy Seinfeld (1989 - 1998), which he co-created, helped write and executive produced in the show's final two seasons.

Early life

Seinfeld was born in New York City. His father, Kálmán, was of Hungarian Jewish background and his mother, Betty, came from a background of Syrian Jews. He grew up in Massapequa, New York. He attended Birch Lane Elementary School and Massapequa High School. In 1971, while aged 17, he spent a short period of time volunteering in Kibbutz Sa'ar in Israel. He went to State University of New York at Oswego but transferred and graduated from Queens College, City University of New York. During his time in college, he was an amateur wrestler who called himself "The Jewish Terror". He developed an interest in stand-up comedy after brief stints in college productions. Right after graduation from Queens College, City University of New York, he tried out at an open mic night at New York City's Catch a Rising Star in 1976. Soon after, he appeared in a Rodney Dangerfield HBO special. When he first started doing stand-up comedy, his mother and sister said he would never be as funny as his father.

Seinfeld had a small recurring role as "Frankie", a mail delivery boy who had comedy routines that no one wanted to hear, on the Benson sitcom in 1979 but he was abruptly fired from the show.

In May 1981, Seinfeld made a highly successful appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He then became a regular on similar shows, including Late Night with David Letterman and The Merv Griffin Show. He was known for his incredibly dedicated and devoted work ethic, it is said that he traveled in an intense snow storm to a comedy club just to find it empty. He was ranked #12 in Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.

Seinfeld

Main article: Seinfeld

Seinfeld created The Seinfeld Chronicles with Larry David in 1989 for NBC. The show was later renamed Seinfeld and, by its fourth season, became the most popular and successful sitcom on American television. The show left the air in 1998. As of 2007, the show is still receiving heavy airplay in syndication. The show also starred Saturday Night Live veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as well as experienced actors Michael Richards and Jason Alexander. On the show, Seinfeld played a caricature of himself. He has said that his show was inspired by the 1950s sitcom The Abbott and Costello Show. About his influences, Seinfeld, in his commentary for "The Gymnast" episode on "Seinfeld, Season 6," said, "He really formed my entire comedic sensibility--I learned how to do comedy from Jean Shepherd."

Seinfeld appeared in 180 episodes of Seinfeld (including several 2-part episodes), and holds the distinction of being the only actor to appear in every episode of the show.

Post-Seinfeld

After his sitcom ended, Seinfeld returned to stand-up comedy instead of pursuing a film career like most other popular comedians have done. In 1998, Seinfeld went on tour and recorded a comedy special entitled I'm Telling You for the Last Time. The process of developing and performing new material at clubs around the world was chronicled in a 2002 documentary, Comedian, which focused also on fellow comic Orny Adams, directed by Christian Charles. He has written a few books, mostly archives of past routines.

In 2004, Seinfeld also appeared in two commercial webisodes promoting American Express, entitled The Adventures Of Seinfeld And Superman, in which he appeared together with an animated rendering of Superman, who was referenced in numerous episodes of Seinfeld as Seinfeld's hero, voiced by Patrick Warburton, who had portrayed David Puddy on Seinfeld. The webisodes were aired in 2004 and directed by Barry Levinson. Seinfeld and "Superman" were also interviewed by Matt Lauer in a specially-recorded interview for the Today Show.

Apple Computer in the late 1990s came up with an advertising slogan called "Think different" and produced a 60-second commercial to promote the slogan which showed people who were able to "think differently", like Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others. This commercial was later cut short to thirty seconds and ended up paying tribute to Jerry Seinfeld. This commercial aired only once, during the series finale of Seinfeld.

On November 18, 2004, Seinfeld appeared at the Smithsonian Museum where the "Puffy Shirt" he wore in the famous Seinfeld episode, The Puffy Shirt, was being donated. He also gave a speech when presenting the "Puffy Shirt", claiming humorously that "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life."

Seinfeld had a special appearance on May 13, 2006 Saturday Night Live episode as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' assassin. Louis-Dreyfus was the host of that episode and in her opening monologue she mentioned the "Seinfeld Curse". While talking about how ridiculous the "curse" was, a stage light suddenly fell next to her. The camera moved to a catwalk above the stage that Seinfeld was standing on, holding a large pair of bolt cutters. He angrily muttered something about the curse, apparently angry that Louis-Dreyfus is not cursed. Louis-Dreyfus then continued to say that she is indeed not cursed.

On an episode of The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart remarked on the fact that Seinfeld did not change his name for the purpose of show business but then went on to ask what he would call himself if he did change it. Jerry then jokingly said, "Well, I would keep my last name, so as not to offend my parents and I would have to go with Jesus."

On February 25, 2007, Seinfeld appeared at the 79th Academy Awards as the presentor for "Best Documentary". Before announcing the nominations he did a bit of a stand-up comedy routine about the unspoken agreement between movie theater owners and movie patrons. One of the winners of the award was Larry David's now ex-wife, Laurie. On October 4, 2007, Seinfeld made a brief return to NBC, guest-starring in the second-season premiere of 30 Rock.

During an interview in relation to his appearance on 30 Rock, Seinfeld stated that this was his first time as a guest star on a sitcom. In fact, Seinfeld has guest starred or had cameos in NewsRadio, Mad About You, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The New WKRP in Cincinnati.

On November 1, 2007, Seinfeld appeared in a live interview with Larry King.

Books

Seinfeld is also a bestselling author, most notably for his book Seinlanguage. Released in 1993, the book went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. The book, written as his television show was first rising in popularity, is primarily an adaptation of the comedian's standup material. The title comes from an article in Entertainment Weekly listing the numerous catch-phrases the show was responsible for.

In 2002, he wrote a children's book titled Halloween. The book was illustrated by James Bennett. There are also several books about both the sitcom and Seinfeld himself, though many of them are not written by Seinfeld.

Seinfeld completed the forewords to Ted L. Nancy's Letters From A Nut series of books and Ed Broth's Stories From A Moron. Both authors are rumored to be pseudonyms for Seinfeld or a friend of his. Neither Nancy or Broth have been seen publicly, although Seinfeld is heavily involved in pitching their books for television. In promoting Broth's book, Seinfeld hosted a toast in the author's honor, although Broth did not arrive to the event.

Seinfeld also wrote the foreword to the Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook, from his favorite sandwich shop in New York City.

Credits

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	The Ratings Game	Network Rep
1999	Pros & Cons	Prison Man #2
2002	Comedian	Jerry Seinfeld
2004	A Uniform Used to Mean Something	Jerry Seinfeld
	Hindsight is 20/20	Jerry Seinfeld
2007	Bee Movie	Barry B. Benson	Voice

Television

Year	Title	Role
1989 - 1998	Seinfeld	Jerry Seinfeld
2007	30 Rock	Jerry Seinfeld

Private life

When he was in his thirties, Seinfeld was engaged to seventeen-year-old high school student Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss. After meeting her at the Reebok Sports Club, he began dating Jessica Sklar, a public relations executive for Tommy Hilfiger who had just returned from a three-week honeymoon in Italy with Eric Nederlander, a theatrical producer and scion of a theater-owning family. Sklar divorced Nederlander and married Seinfeld on December 25, 1999. Comedian George Wallace was the best man at the wedding. After the nuptials, Seinfeld bought Billy Joel's Amagansett house for $32 million in March 2000.

Seinfeld and his wife have three children, one daughter and two sons. Daughter Sascha was born on November 7, 2000, son Julian Kal on March 1, 2003 and Shepherd Kellen was born on August 22, 2005. His son Julian's middle name is Kal, which is the first name of Seinfeld's father. Kal is also the first name of Seinfeld's hero Kal-El, AKA "Superman".

In 2000, Jessica Seinfeld launched Baby Buggy, a charity that provides clothing and gear for the infants and young children of poor, abused, addicted, and homeless women. She is the author of the best-seller Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, released by Harper Collins in October 2007 . As was reported in The New York Times, the recipes and concepts presented in Deceptively Delicious bore striking similarities with those presented in another cookbook, “The Sneaky Chef,” by Missy Chase Lapine published by Running Press (an imprint of the Perseus Books Group) in April 2007.

Personal income

Seinfeld received $267 million during 1998 according to Forbes magazine, making him the highest-earning celebrity that year. Even though many believed the sitcom suffered after Larry David's departure, it continued for two more years, ending in May 1998, Seinfeld still generates more revenue than most current shows, through syndication. He reportedly turned down $5 million per episode, for 22 episodes, to continue the show beyond its final season. In 2006 he earned $60 million from syndication deals and stand-up appearances.

Car collection

Seinfeld is an avid automobile enthusiast and collector and is rumored to own one of the largest Porsche collections in the world. He rented out an entire hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in Santa Monica, California for an extended period of time during the 1990s for storage of some of the vehicles in the collection. After his return to New York City he was involved in an extended dispute with several neighbors over the proposed building of a $1.4 million multistory garage to contain the cars.

A current tally puts Seinfeld at 47 Porsches. Reporter Paul Bannister reports that his collection includes Porsche 911s from various years, 10 Porsche Boxsters each painted a different color and the famous, some would say infamous, 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, the same model and pearl-grey color that actor James Dean was driving when he crashed and died in September 1955 near Cholame, California. The centerpiece is a $700,000 Porsche 959, one of only 268 ever built. To his initial despair, he was not allowed to drive it as US emission and crash tests were never performed because Porsche refused to donate 4 Porsche 959s for destruction tests, rendering the car "not street legal". He imported the car "for exhibition purposes", which stipulates the car may never set rubber on American roads. The car was made street legal in 2003 / 2004.

In several episodes of Seinfeld, Seinfeld drives a Saab 900 (NG) convertible but a Porsche themed painting, depicting a Porsche 904 GTS race car competing in the 1964 Targa Florio race in Italy, is visible on a wall in his apartment as well as a Porsche racing poster featuring a Porsche 550 Spyder depicting the 1958 Targa Florio. In another episode, he is seen hiding behind a red Porsche 911RS parked on the street. In addition, an issue of Excellence, a Porsche-centered publication, is featured prominently on an outdoor magazine rack in one episode and on at least one occasion he is seen reading an issue of Road and Track magazine from circa 1990 with a cover article on the Porsche 964. He also wrote an article for February 2004 issue of Automobile Magazine, reviewing the Porsche Carrera GT. For the story he was awarded Road Test - Silver at the 2004 International Automotive Media Awards.

External links

• Jerry Seinfeld at IMDb
• Jerry Seinfeld Goes Back to Work on Time.com (a division of Time Magazine)