Larry David (original) (raw)

Larry David

Larry David AKA Lawrence Gene David

Born: 2-Jul-1947
Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Film/TV Producer, Actor
Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Seinfeld co-creator, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Military service: US Army Reserve

Before Seinfeld, both Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were stand-up comedians. They co-created Seinfeld, and Jason Alexander's George Costanza was written as a fatter Larry David. The main difference, David says, is that he has always been more twisted than Costanza.

David did stand-up for 15 years, augmenting his income with work as a brassiere wholesaler and limousine driver. He was a writer and producer on ABC's Fridays from 1980-82. That _Saturday Night Live_-esque skit show also featured Michael Richards, and included several other performers who eventually visited Seinfeld. As an actor, David had tiny parts in Woody Allen's Radio Days and New York Stories, and appeared occasionally on PBS's sketch comedy show for kids, Square One TV.

He worked as a writer at Saturday Night Live during the 1984-85 season, though only one of his sketches was ever used on the show. One night, when SNL Executive Producer Dick Ebersol again cut a sketch David had written, he loudly and furiously quit ten minutes before air time, with an obscenity-laced resignation screamed at Ebersol so loudly the audience could hear it. Then, after reconsidering over the weekend, David went back to work the next week and pretended nothing had happened. Unlike the Seinfeld episode where George did the same thing, Ebersol never mentioned it, and David didn't quit for real until the end of the season.

As a stand-up comic, he sometimes walked off the stage if he felt the audience wasn't paying enough attention. Once, he came onstage at a crowded nightclub and said nothing for a long moment as he scanned the audience, quietly counting the people who were eating, talking, drinking, or otherwise distracted, or who just looked too up-tight to get his jokes. Finally David just said "Never mind," and left.

He has said that his biggest break was being friends with Seinfeld. They came up with the concept for "the show about nothing" on a supermarket shopping trip together. Many of Seinfeld's most memorable moments came from David's life. It was David who once met a woman, forgot her name but remembered where she worked, so he staked out her office. He once tried to steal the tape from a girlfriend's answering machine, so she wouldn't hear the message he had left. He was once in a contest with friends, to see who could refrain from masturbation for the longest.

In addition to writing many episodes, David also played at least a dozen characters on Seinfeld, but usually without taking screen credit. He was the answering-machine voice of Newman, before Wayne Knight was cast in the role. He was an actor in a schlocky horror movie on TV, while Jerry nodded off. He was the Greenpeace worker on the raft as NBC President Bob Balaban floated out to sea. He was the mysterious man in a cape, alongside George's father (Jerry Stiller). And in several episodes, David played the back of George Steinbrenner's head.

David left Seinfeld two years before the show ended, and the show lost some of its sharpness. As co-creator, producer, and co-owner of the show, though, he walked away with a few million less than a quarter-billion dollars. His first post-Seinfeld project was writing and directing the barely-released Sour Grapes. David returned to Seinfeld to write the two-part finale, and played one of Jerry's hecklers in the cafeteria.

Beginning in 2000, David created, produced, wrote for and starred in Curb Your Enthusiasm, a long-running HBO sitcom where David plays a fictionalized version of himself. He is portrayed as a rude, selfish, unrepentant multi-millionaire neurotic grouch. He has plotted adultery, stolen cake from a blind man, insulted a holocaust survivor, discussed oral sex with the rapper Krazee-Eyez Killa, used his mother's death to his own advantage, and harassed a friend in mourning. The show is improvised, not scripted.

Larry David met Richard Lewis at summer camp when they were 13, and Lewis is now featured in a recurring role on David's Curb Your Enthusiasm. David was a pall bearer at Rodney Dangerfield's 2004 funeral.

In 2003, when Juan Catalan of Los Angeles was arrested for murder, he maintained that he was at Dodger Stadium watching a ball game when the murder took place. It turned out that Curb Your Enthusiasm had filmed crowd scenes at Dodger Stadium that same night, and when the film was subpoenaed, outtakes were scrutinized, and the footage established that Catalan and his daughter were in their seats while the crime was taking place miles away. David's response was, "I've now done one decent thing in my life, albeit inadvertently."

Father: (clothing salesman)
Mother: Shirley (homemaker)
Wife: Laurie Lennard (activist, b. 1958, m. 31-Mar-1993, sep. Jun-2007)

High School: Sheepshead Bay High School, Brooklyn, NY (1966)
University: BA History, University of Maryland (1970)

Al Franken for Senate
Bill Bradley for President
Dean for America
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Gephardt for President
John Edwards for President
Midwest Values PAC
Obama for America
PAC For a Change
Progressive Patriots Fund
Funeral: Nora Ephron (2012)

TELEVISION
Curb Your Enthusiasm Creator
Seinfeld Co-creator
Saturday Night Live Writer (1984-85)
Fridays (1980-82)

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
Sour Grapes (17-Apr-1998)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Clear History (10-Aug-2013)
Quality Balls (2-May-2013) · Himself
Woody Allen: A Documentary (30-May-2012) · Himself
The Three Stooges (13-Apr-2012) · Sister Mary-Mengele
Whatever Works (22-Apr-2009)
Fuel (17-Oct-2008) · Himself
New York Stories (1-Mar-1989)
Radio Days (30-Jan-1987) · Communist Neighbor
Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (10-Sep-1983)
Second Thoughts (Feb-1983)

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