Trivia: Seemingly every struggling standup comic dreams of landing their own television series, but few managed to do so with greater success than Jerry Seinfeld, whose career as a nightclub comedian led to him starring as himself on the show Seinfeld -- arguably the most successful situation comedy of the 1990s.Jerome "Jerry" Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, NY, on April 29, 1954, to Kalman Seinfeld, a signmaker, and his wife, Betty; Jerry was the second of the couple's two children. The Seinfeld family moved to Long Island when Jerry was a child, and he spent most of his youth there. After graduating from high school, Seinfeld went on to college, first attending the State University of New York at Oswego, and then moving on to Queens College of the City University of New York, where he received a Bachelor's Degree in 1976. Seinfeld developed a keen interest in performing while in college (his degree from Queens was in communications and theater), and after graduation he began working New York comedy clubs, often without pay, while holding down a number of odd jobs. Seinfeld's first big break came when his bright but understated observational humor caught the eye of standup legend Rodney Dangerfield, who featured Seinfeld on a special for HBO. The exposure helped establish Seinfeld on the comedy club circuit, and won him a recurring role on the situation comedy Benson. However, Seinfeld and the show's producers clashed over the character's direction, and he was fired after only four episodes.In 1981, Seinfeld appeared for the first time on The Tonight Show, then hosted by Johnny Carson, and made a strong impression on both the audience and the host; he became a frequent guest on the Carson show, as well as David Letterman's late-night talk show. As Seinfeld's fame began to rise, he starred in several cable TV specials, and was approached to star in several TV series. However, remembering his experience on Benson, Seinfeld opted to avoid episodic television unless he was in a position of greater control (though he did do occasional guest spots on sitcoms and played a small role in Danny De Vito's TV movie The Ratings Game). In the meantime, Seinfeld and his good friend Larry David began working up an idea for a situation comedy to be called The Seinfeld Chronicles. In 1989, NBC took the bait, and a year later the show premiered under the streamlined name Seinfeld. Concerning standup comic Jerry Seinfeld and the often odd everyday occurrences of his circle of friends (many of whom were based on people Seinfeld and David knew in real life), Seinfeld got off to a slow start, but began to win a healthy audience in its second season, and in time became one of NBC's biggest hits, until Seinfeld and David opted to end the show at the peak of its popularity in 1998. Unlike most stars of top-rated television shows, Seinfeld displayed no interest in moving into films, and instead returned to standup comedy shortly after his show went off the air with a sold-out concert tour. In the Spring of 2002, however, Seinfeld did sign a deed to appear in a documentary about his return to the comedy circuit with a new act. In 2010 Seinfeld made a high-profile return to television on NBC's The Marriage Ref -- a show that found a rotating panel of celebrities attepting to settle petty disputes between squabbling spouses -- but the show went off the air after two seasons due to poor ratings. In his personal life, during the height of his fame, Seinfeld was romantically linked with several women (including comic and writer Carol Leifer, fashion designer Shoshanna Lonstein, and writer Jennifer Crittenden) before marrying Jessica Sklar, a publicist who met Seinfeld only a few weeks after her marriage to Eric Nederlander in 1998. Seinfeld and Sklar wed in December of 1999, and their first child, daughter Sascha, was born on November 7, 2000.

Trivia: Most everyone who went to high school in Livingston, NJ, with Newark-born Jason Alexander knew that the lad was destined to become a major actor. Though inclined to stoutness -- and baldness -- from age 16 onward, Alexander had such a commanding stage presence that he was invariably cast as the star in school plays, in roles ranging from romantic leads to elderly character parts. While attending Boston University, the 20-year-old Alexander was cast in the lead of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along, which might have made him an overnight star had it not closed almost as soon as it opened. Alexander's first film role was in 1981's The Burning; that same year he made his TV-movie bow in Senior Trip. By 1989, Alexander had two major industry awards to his credit: the Tony and Grammy, both for his participation in Jerome Robbins' Broadway. In 1990, he was cast as clueless loser George Costanza in the popular sitcom Seinfeld (the character was allegedly based on series co-creator Larry David). And in 1994, his voice could be heard each week on the USA cable network as the web-footed, sex-obsessed private eye hero of the animated cartoon series Duckman. Though still best-known for his portrayal of George Costanza, Alexander's feature film career picked up speed during the '90s as both a character actor in major comedies such as Dunston Checks In and a voice-over artist on such animated Disney features as Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In 1997, he played a more dramatic role as an AIDS-afflicted drag queen who finds romance in Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997). After a disappointing blink-and-you-miss-it comeback to the small screen as a self-help guru in Bob Patterson, Alexander leapt back to the big screen opposite Jack Black in the Farrelly brothers' Shallow Hal. He directed the sex comedy Just Looking in 1999. He had another small-screen misfire with Listen Up. But he continued to appear regularly in movies including the documentary The Aristocrats, the improvised poker movie The Grand, and Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror. He has lent his voice to a handful of animated projects over the years, and in 2012 he appeared in the family film A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up Timmy Turner.

Trivia: Like other Saturday Night Live alumni, Julia Louis-Dreyfus made the move to feature films, but she achieved true stardom on TV as Seinfeld's inimitable Elaine Benes. Born to an affluent family and raised in Washington, D.C., Louis-Dreyfus studied theater at Northwestern University. Along with working as a member of The Practical Theater Company, Louis-Dreyfus cut her sharp comic teeth as part of Chicago's Second City troupe. She soon followed in the footsteps of prior Second City-ers John Belushi and Bill Murray, joining the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985 (along with Northwestern classmate and eventual husband Brad Hall). Louis-Dreyfus bounced to films with appearances in Soul Man (1986), Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), before returning to TV on the second episode of a low-rated NBC primetime sitcom starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld in 1990.As Jerry's ex-girlfriend-turned-pal Elaine, Louis-Dreyfus proved that she could hold her own as the sole female member of Seinfeld's do-nothing quartet of neurotic New Yorkers. With her "big wall of hair," signature shoes and penchant for over-enthusiastic exclamations, Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine was no mere foil, but rather a full participant in the show's increasingly popular, irony-laden comic shenanigans. Along with winning an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1996, Louis-Dreyfus won the Golden Globe in 1994 and the Screen Actor's Guild award in 1997 and 1998. During Seinfeld's phenomenally successful nine-year run, Louis-Dreyfus also played supporting roles in North (1994), Father's Day (1997), and as a libidinous sister in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997). After Seinfeld went off the air in 1998, Dreyfus took some time off from appearing in front of the camera to spend time with her husband and two sons, but she did the voice of Princess Atta in the Pixar animated blockbuster A Bug's Life (1998).Louis-Dreyfus subsequently returned to TV as the Blue Fairy in the TV movie musical Gepetto (2000) before attempting another sitcom. After two of her Seinfeld co-stars failed to make their own series fly in 2000 and 2001, Louis-Dreyfus opted for a non-traditional approach, playing a struggling lounge singer in the real time, laugh track free Watching Ellie in 2002. Louis-Dreyfus would continue to remain one of the most beloved comedic actresses in TV, starring on The New Adventures of Old Christine, and the political satire Veep.

Trivia: Mention the name of actor Michael Richards and it immediately conjures up images of Cosmo Kramer, the wild-haired, well-meaning neighbor-from-hell on the long-running NBC sitcom Seinfeld. But though Kramer is the role for which Richards is best known, it would be unfair to categorize him as a one-note actor, for he had already established a solid career as a comic character actor before landing the role in 1989. A native of Van Nuys, CA, Richards was raised by his mother Phyllis Richards, a medical records librarian. His father, William Richards, an electrical engineer, died when Richards was a toddler. His mother raised him in Culver City, one of L.A.'s centers for movie and television production. When Richards was in the eighth grade, he developed a passion for acting that blinded him to almost all other career options. After high school, he aspired to become a dramatic actor and enrolled in the theater program at Valley College in California. There, however, it quickly became apparent that Richards' genius lay not in drama, but in comedy (he credits his mother for his sense of humor). He did not graduate and was drafted by the Army. After serving two years in Germany, he returned to attend the California Institute of the Arts. He did not earn a degree, however, until he attended Washington State's alternative school, Evergreen State College. After graduating, he returned to Los Angeles and began performing in comedy clubs. In those days, he specialized in a blend of surrealist and zany comedy. He had worked the standup circuit for less than a year when he was tapped by the ABC network to appear in their new sketch series Fridays. Though derided as a direct rip-off of NBC's more successful Saturday Night Live, the show ran from 1980 to 1982. The year the show was cancelled is the year Richards made his feature film debut, in Garry Marshall's comedy Young Doctors in Love (1982). Though Richards subsequently never lacked for work in features and television, he remained relatively obscure until fellow Fridays castmate Larry David called to offer him a part in The Seinfeld Chronicles, a show he had recently developed with comedian Jerry Seinfeld. After a rocky start, the show was renamed Seinfeld and given a regular timeslot. Richard's character Kramer was based on one of David's friends. It took the actor a few episodes to develop his kooky alter ego, but once he did the results were dazzling, garnering Richards a trio of Emmys for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Playing Kramer was not always easy for him. In many ways a classic slapstick character, the role's physical demands often exhausted Richards, who also suffered the underlying stress of becoming typecast. Fortunately, the fame accorded him for his television work provided him the opportunity to stretch out on the big screen, as he did in Diane Keaton's Unstrung Heroes (1995). In 1997, Richards received top billing for the first time in Trial and Error, which co-starred Jeff Daniels. In November of 2006, a high profile, on stage meltdown at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles found Richards labeled a racist for repeatedly screaming "the 'N' word" at a pair of hecklers, and despite a quick apology on Late Night With David Letterman and discussions with leaders in the black community, it appeared Richards had irreparably damaged his reputation. In 2007 Richards retired from stand-up comedy, though his old friend David gave him a shot at a small screen comeback with a brief recurring role on his hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Trivia: Rotund and often sloppy-looking comic Sandy Baron (born Sanford Beresofsky) is perhaps best remembered for his wrap-around appearance as himself in Woody Allen's paean to borsch-belt comedy, Broadway Danny Rose (1982), and more recently, as Jack Klompus, Seinfeld Sr.'s nemesis on the hit television series Seinfeld. A veteran Catskill performer, Baron was a nightclub regular before making a national impact on the experimental television comedy series That Was the Week That Was. A regular panelist on Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin in the 1970s, Baron also enjoyed a long run in the one-man show Lenny at Hollywood's Aquarius Theater in 1972. Broadway Danny Rose was just one of 20 films Baron would grace, the majority of them of little consequence except for his always critically acclaimed appearance. The veteran comedian died of emphysema at a Van Nuys, CA, nursing home.

Trivia: During his first few decades as an actor, Bill Macy took whatever was readily available: poetry-reading jobs, movie bits, comedy-record gigs (he's the operatic cabdriver in the classical music lampoon The Wurst of PDQ Bach) and off-Broadway stage assignments. While appearing in the 1969 "nudie" musical Oh! Calcutta, the 45-year-old Macy gained attention, critical and otherwise, for appearing au naturel in one of the comedy sketches. Evidently he enjoyed the sensation; even in his days of TV prominence, Macy was known to disrobe at parties and public functions whenever he'd been too generous in his participation at the bar. In the early 1970s, Macy was cast in several small roles in the TV properties of producer Norman Lear; this led to a lengthy (72-78) engagement as Walter Findlay, husband of fiery feminist Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) on the popular sitcom Maude. Since that time, Bill Macy has thrived in film and stage character parts, and has co-starred in two TV weeklies, Hanging In (79) and Nothing in Common (87).

Trivia: It took the television series Seinfeld and his portrayal of Morty Seinfeld to turn Barney Martin into a pop-culture star, complete with talk-show engagements and personal appearances -- but Martin was a working actor for 40 years before that, in films and television, on Broadway, and in regional theater. Born in New York City in the early '20s, he was the son of the police official in charge of the jail facility known as the Tombs. He served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, with 42 missions to his credit as a navigator; he joined the police force after the war and won commendations for bravery. Martin had always shown a flair for comedy, and while a member of the police force, he was often asked to add jokes to the speeches of various deputy commissioners. In the early '50s, he began moving into professional entertainment circles, selling his jokes and also writing for Name That Tune, and then was hired as a writer on The Steve Allen Show -- it was while working on that end of the business, and with some encouragement from a new friend, Mel Brooks, that Martin became convinced that he could be as funny as most of the professional comics he was seeing in front of the cameras and on-stage. By the end of the 1950s, he was working as a stand-in for Jackie Gleason. With his hefty frame tipping the scales at well over 200 pounds even in those days, and his slightly befuddled look, he was nearly a dead-ringer for Gleason in one profile, and he ended up working on camera in various sketches. Martin's other early television performances included regular work as a "ringer" on Candid Camera, and work on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Perry Como Show, as well as straight acting performances on such dramatic shows as The Naked City, where his New York accent and mannerisms made Martin a natural. He also turned in an excruciatingly funny performance as Fats Borderman, a hapless professional hood, in the Car 54, Where Are You? episode "Toody Undercover." Martin made his first big-screen appearance in the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Wrong Man, as a member of the jury -- he also showed up in uncredited appearances in such movies as Butterfield 8, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and Love With the Proper Stranger. In 1968, he got his first two credited screen appearances, in Mel Brooks' The Producers, portraying Goring in "Springtime for Hitler," and playing Hank in Ralph Nelson's Charly. Most of Martin's acting, however, was on-stage, including Broadway productions of South Pacific, All American, Street Scene, How Now, Dow Jones, and Chicago; in the latter's '70s production, he originated the role of Amos Hart. He also appeared in regional theater productions of Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Fantasticks. Martin also made occasional appearances on television, most notably on The Odd Couple, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, in such episodes as "The Jury Story" and "The Subway Story." His friendship with Randall also carried over to his being cast as a regular when the latter got his own series, The Tony Randall Show, in 1976. Martin might have gone on for the rest of his career as a character actor well known to those in his profession, doing occasional big-screen performances in features such as Stanley Donen's Movie, Movie and Steve Gordon's Arthur, but for the Seinfeld television series. After inheriting the role of Morty Seinfeld from another actor, Martin became a regular on the series, usually working in tandem with Liz Sheridan playing Morty's wife, also playing opposite Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Michael Richards, and Jerry Stiller, and always holding his own in eliciting laughs. Perhaps Martin's best single episode was the one in which his character is defeated in the election as chairman of the condominium board -- the script was filled with little digs aimed at Oliver Stone's movie Nixon, and Martin was able to bring just enough Nixon-like gravitas to his portrayal to make the whole show work.

Trivia: Plucky Brooklyn-born actress Marisa Tomei was one year into her college education at Boston University when she was tapped for a co-starring role on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns. Her role on that show, as well as work on another soap, One Life to Live, paved the way for her entrance into film: In 1984, she made her film debut with a bit part in The Flamingo Kid.Three years later Tomei became known for her role as Maggie Lawton, Lisa Bonet's college roommate, on the sitcom A Different World. Her real breakthrough came in 1992, when she co-starred as Joe Pesci's hilariously foul-mouthed girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny, a performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Later that year, she turned up briefly as a snippy Mabel Normand in director Richard Attenborough's mammoth biopic Chaplin, and was soon given her first starring role in Untamed Heart (1993). A subsequent starring role -- and attempted makeover into Audrey Hepburn -- in the romantic comedy Only You (1994) proved only moderately successful. Tomei's other 1994 role as Michael Keaton's hugely pregnant wife in The Paper was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. Worse luck hit with her participation in the critically thrashed Four Rooms in 1995. Fortunately for Tomei, she was able to rebound somewhat the following year with a solid performance as a troubled single mother in Nick Cassavetes' Unhook the Stars. She turned in a similarly strong work in Welcome to Sarajevo in 1997, and in 1998 did some of her best work in years as the sexually liberated, unhinged cousin of Natasha Lyonne's Vivian Abramowitz in Tamara Jenkins' The Slums of Beverly Hills. Appearing in no less than five movies in 2000, Tomei continued her journey back to the top with a memorable performance in 2001's In the Bedroom. An emotionally wrenching tale of loss and grief, Tomei's performance as a recently separated wife who begins a tragic affair with a college student struck a common cord with critics and filmgoers alike, in addition to earning the talented actress her second Oscar nomination.Tomei's versatility assured her continuous work in a variety of different kinds of films. She played one of the women in the remake of Alfie, co-starred opposite Adam Sandler in Anger Management, and worked in the Charles Bukowski-inspired independent film Factotum. In 2007 she earned strong reviews for her work in Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and appeared in the box office smash Wild Hogs. In 2008, Tomei enjoyed her largest critical acclaim since In the Bedroom thanks to her supporting turn opposite Mickey Rourke in The Wrestelr. Her performance earned her a number of year-end critics awards, as well as nominations from both the Golden Globes and the Academy.In 2010 she appeared in the Duplass Borthers comedy Cyrus, as the overly clingy mother to a son played by Jonah Hill, and the next year she had memorable turns in Crazy Stupid Love as a teacher who picks an unfortunate partner for a one-night-stand, and The Ides of March as a political reporter who has a hand in shaking up a presidential campaign.

Trivia: Versatile American character actor Wayne Knight has been frequently on stage, screen and television since the late 1970s. In the early '80s, he temporarily left acting (after appearing over 1,000 times in the play Gemini) to become a private detective. In 1986, Knight returned to film in The Sex O'Clock News. He has worked with a number of distinguished directors including Oliver Stone, Kenneth Branagh and Steven Spielberg playing roles ranging from comics to villains. On television, he is best known for playing the oily, self-serving postman Newman on the long-running sitcom Seinfeld, and Officer Don on the outworldly comedy Third Rock From the Sun.