Like Crazy Joe Davola I'm gathering pictures and articles about Elaine aka Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Thanks everybody for making my Julia Louis-Dreyfus pages a big success! My free space at Xoom has disappeared but I've run out of disk space at AccessV so some of the Julia pictures are missing. Sorry!
Not to her costars, who have accepted the Saturday Night Live alum in true fraternal fashion. She may be toting a newborn infant and have lost 30 pounds she gained in pregnancy, but, says Alexander, affectionately, ''she's still one of the guys. She just doesn't hang around as much after they call wrap.'' Louis-Dreyfus believes that Elaine ''is very much like myself, times 150. She's a fairly stable, high-strung woman who's independent but a little confused about where she's going.''
Louis-Dreyfus, however, never veered from a path toward showbiz. Growing up in New York City and Washington, D.C., she divided her time -- happily, she recalls -- between two sets of parents: her mom, Judith Bowles, a writer, and stepfather, L. Thompson Bowles, a doctor; and her father, William Louis-Dreyfus, a businessman, and stepmother, Phyllis Louis-Dreyfus, a teacher (she has four younger half sisters). Louis-Dreyfus began performing in high school at the exclusive Holton-Arms girls school in Bethesda, Md. At Northwestern University, she was the only female member of an improv troupe, the Practical Theater Company, run by Brad Hall (now the supervising producer of CBS's Brooklyn Bridge). They wed in 1987, and both her father and her stepfather walked her down the aisle.
In 1982, after they saw the couple in a Chicago comedy revue, the producers of Saturday Night Live invited her and Hall to join the cast, which at first made Louis-Dreyfus feel ''like Cinderella,'' then more like Cinderella under the sway of her wicked stepfamily. ''It was an extremely political environment, and I'm not talking about government,'' she recalls of the three seasons she spent alongside Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo and Billy Crystal. ''Ultimately I learned that it's not worth it unless you're having a good time.'' After SNL, Louis-Dreyfus had a part in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, then vividly created the role of Eileen Swift, a fast-track stockbroker who hated kids, on the short-lived day-care sitcom Day by Day. Then, in 1989, a Seinfeld script landed in her lap. ''Normally I would have hesitated,'' she says, ''because my inclination would have been to get a lead, right? But the writing was truly spectacular -- no bull.'' According to Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus was a shoo-in for the role: ''It was just, yeah, this * is the girl,'' he says. ''She had an intelligence and appeal that was exactly what we were looking for -- the ex-girlfriend you can't seem to get past.'' She quickly ingratiated herself with cast and crew. Says Elaine Pope, the show's only female writer: ''She really is the least complaining actress I've ever worked with. Of course, the hair's gotta look good. That's a whole separate career to keep it looking good.'' These days, Louis-Dreyfus claims she worries less about her cascading curls and more about the lactation pump. Though Henry was delivered by a difficult and painful C-section, and though she ''cried a lot in the beginning,'' she has adjusted happily, if wearily, to her new routine. When they're not working, Louis-Dreyfus and Hall, 33, cocoon in their four-bedroom, country- style home in the hills above Westwood, Calif. In mock-horror, Louis- Dreyfus laments that all pretense of a social life has been abandoned. Then she turns to Henry and coos: ''But it's all worth it, yes it is; it's all worth it.''
Clairol had an essay writing contest to promote their product "Nice 'N Easy" in 1995. This picture came from the site at www.napsnet.com/beauty/32204.html
(NAPS)-Providing health care for homeless people is an important cause for many Americans, especially Julia Louis-Dreyfus, star of "Seinfeld" and Clairol Nice 'N Easy haircolor commercials.
"It is imperative that we help those less fortunate, especially homeless people, who have a very difficult time caring for themselves and their families," says Louis-Dreyfus. "Women and children remain the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. They aren't able to receive medical attention on a regular basis, and their health is at great risk."
Louis-Dreyfus is doing her part to help fight the increasing homelessness problem in this country. She is scheduled to appear on Comic Relief VII, airing November 11 on HBO, along with many top, world-famous comedians. Founded in January 1986, Comic Relief's mission is to aid the indigent and provide health care and related services to homeless people in the United States. Since its inception, the organization has raised and distributed more than $30 million toward its cause.
Even with her hectic schedule, Louis-Dreyfus takes the time to help others, and Clairol knows she's not the only one. To honor women who help to make the world a nicer, easier place to live, the maker of Nice 'N Easy haircolor is sponsoring the "It's Nice 'N Easy to Care" essay contest. Endorsed by Louis-Dreyfus and Comic Relief, the contest invites women 18 and older to write, in 100 words or less, how they or someone they know has helped others (friends, family or community) and made the world a nicer and easier place to live.
"Women are proud of their efforts to make the world better, and now, they can share with women around the country how they've helped," says Louis-Dreyfus. "Their stories can inspire others to make life a little easier for those less fortunate.
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OF THE FOURTH generation of Louis-Dreyfuses to run the family firm, William is as American as he is French. Or maybe we should say he is as French as he is American. He was a child in 1940 when his American mother returned home after she divorced Pierre Louis-Dreyfus. By the time WWII ended, Gerard Louis-Dreyfus was an all-American boy who called himself William and turned his back on all things French. He graduated from Duke University and its law school and went to work in 1959 at New York's Dewey, Ballantine firm.
In 1965 Pierre Louis-Dreyfus appealed to his son to save the family firm. Family ties prevailed. He was in the top spot in 1969 when he was 37. In France he called himself Gerard. In the U.S. he was still William.
Under William/Gerard, the nerve center of the Louis Dreyfus empire shifted to New York, although the company remains incorporated under French law. Ownership is divided evenly between cousins Jean Louis-Dreyfus and Pierre, both 88. Jean's brother, Francois, died in 1959.
William/Gerard is an intriguing personality. As American as Jimmy Stewart, as French as Maurice Chevalier. "He's a chameleon," says Robert Siebel, a former commodities banker at J.P. Morgan who worked with Louis-Dreyfus. "He goes from one place to the other and just blends in."
Now 64, he says he'd like to spend more time on other pursuits. He recently bought into the New York startup of England's weekly Time Out cultural guide. He teaches poetry classes twice a week at a high school in Harlem and serves as a trustee of the Poetry Society of America. "It's been a long time," he says of his three decades at Louis Dreyfus. He may be the last of his line to run the firm.
His pride and joy is his daughter Julia, 33, a charming comedienne who stars in the hit sitcom Seinfeld. She and her father are very close, but follow him into business? No way. "The last thing that Dad would talk about at dinner was business," says Julia Louis-Dreyfus. "I never had a head for it."
There's William/Gerard's cousin Robert Louis-Dreyfus, Jean's son. He's the brilliant businessman who revived ailing German footwear maker Adidas, pocketing over $500 million when he took it public late last year (Forbes, Mar. 25). Robert says he will never work at the family firm under any circumstances. "I think we ought to bring in outside managers. There's no one who can run it in the fourth or fifth generation," he says.--J.L.
