Though she may be forever remembered as Elaine Benes – she of the “big wall of hair,†nipple slip, and uncomfortable dancing – on the NBC sitcom, Seinfeld (1990-98), actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus allowed her comedic talents to shine in a variety of film and television projects ranging from “Saturday Night Live†(NBC, 1975- ) to the animated hit, “A Bug’s Life†(1998). And her return to network television with “The New Adventures of Old Christine†(2005-) appeared to have (for once) broken the “’Seinfeld’ curse†that plagued her co-stars’ subsequent projects.
Born Jan. 13, 1961 in Manhattan, NY, Louis-Dreyfus was one of two daughters born to businessman and lawyer William Louis-Dreyfus (the Louis-Dreyfus family included her grandfather, Leopold Louis-Dreyfus, who founded an international firm of the same name, and cousin Robert Louis-Dreyfus, former owner of Adidas) and Phyllis Louis-Dreyfus. Her parents separated when she was a year old, and Louis-Dreyfus relocated with her mother and sister to Washington, D.C., when she was eight (her mother eventually remarried to the dean of George Washington Medical School). Louis-Dreyfus studied theater at Northwest University, where she met her future husband, comedian Brad Hall.
