Trivia: Liz Sheridan is an actress mostly associated with comedic roles, and best known for her portrayal of Helen Seinfeld, the mother of Jerry Seinfeld, on the series Seinfeld. Born in Westchester County and raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she graduated from Mamaroneck High School. Sheridan started out in entertainment as a dancer, and was also a pianist and singer. During the early '50s, she crossed personal paths with James Dean; the two became very close, and this period in her life was recounted in Sheridan's book Dizzy and Jimmy: My Life With James Dean (2000). She lived in the Caribbean from 1953 until the mid-'60s, when she returned to New York to embark on an acting career, principally on-stage. Sheridan made a small number of television appearances, on programs such as Kojak, but her real TV career didn't begin until the 1980s, when she started getting guest roles shows such as Gimme a Break, St. Elsewhere, The A-Team, Hill Street Blues, and Scarecrow & Mrs. King, as well as in various made-for-television movies and miniseries, interspersed with the occasional feature film such as Star 80 (1983) and Legal Eagles (1986). She was probably most visible during this period in the role of Selma the housekeeper in the pilot episode of Moonlighting (1985). In 1986, Sheridan became a regular on the series Alf, which ran for four seasons, portraying Mrs. Ochmonek. At the end of that run, she auditioned for and won the role of Helen Seinfeld on Seinfeld. As Jerry Seinfeld's well-meaning but slightly high-strung mother, always trying to mediate between the generations in her family, she revealed a delightful range of comedic skills, working alongside such diverse talents as Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Barney Martin, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander, et al. In the years since the cancellation of the series, she has continued to work regularly in television and feature films, primarily portraying matronly and grandmother-type roles.

Trivia: Anne Meara started out and ended up a distinguished dramatic actress--and in between, scored high marks as a comedienne, playwright and screenwriter. Launching her career in summer stock in 1950, Meara won an Obie Award for her intensely dramatic performance in the 1955 off-Broadway production Maedchen in Uniform; during this period, she was also a semi-regular on the NBC TV daytime soaper The Greatest Gift. Auditioning for an opera in 1954, she met another struggling actor, Jerry Stiller; they were married the following year. Forming the comedy team of Stiller & Meara, The team skyrocketed to stardom via their many appearances on such 1960s variety series as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show. One of their richest sources of material was the difference in their ethnic backgrounds, especially in their famous "Hershey Horowitz/Mary Elizabeth Doyle" routines (an Irish Catholic, Meara converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Stiller). They also appeared together on Broadway, in the supporting cast of the 1971 sitcom The Paul Lynde Show, and in an obscure 1975 syndicated TV comedy "filler" series Take Five With Stiller and Meara. On her own, Meara has provided comic and noncomic support to several films, including Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), The Out-of-Towners (1970) and Fame (1980). She starred in the 1975 TV lawyer series Kate McShane, and co-starred as tavern owner Mae on The Corner Bar (1973), divorced airline stewardess Sally Gallagher on the 1976-77 season of Rhoda, acid-tongued cook Veronica Rooney on Archie Bunker's Place (1979-83), and mother-in-law Dorothy Halligan on Alf (1987). In 1983, Meara won the Writers Guild "outstanding achievement" award for her script for the made-for-TV feature Another Woman, and ten years later was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Marthy in the Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Anne Meara is the mother of comic actor Ben Stiller and worked with her son in his directorial feature debut, Reality Bites (1994), Zoolander (2001) and Night at the Museum (2006). She recurred on Sex and the City, playing Miranda's mother-in-law, Mary, and later reprised the role in the feature film. Meara died in 2015, at age 85.