Did Julia Louis-Dreyfus Insanely Rich Father Approve Of Seinfeld?
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During Julia Louis-Drefyus's acceptance speech at the 2016 Emmy Awards, the actress dedicated the award to her father, Gerard "William" Louis-Dreyfus, who passed away two days prior. "I'm so glad that he liked Veep because his opinion was the one that really mattered," said the now 11-time Emmy Winner.
Despite her parents divorcing at a young age and her father being a dedicated businessman, Julia and her father had a close relationship. During an interview the pair did on the Today Show in 2014, Julia's father said, "Well, I couldn't tell whether she was going to be a star. But I knew how natural she was and how much she liked life and fun, she was always very funny and fun to be with." He never predicted his daughter would become an actress, let alone an award-winning one. While he was supportive of his daughter during the end of his life, was he as enthusiastic about her acting days early in her career and during her time on Seinfeld?
How Did Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Father Really Feel About Her Being On Seinfeld?
While some fans were shocked to find out that her father wasn't actor Richard Dreyfuss, Julia's father's death also brought up a conversation about his impressive net worth.
Julia's father was a billionaire three times over at the time of his passing, and his business was valued at over $50 billion. Julia has adamantly denied "growing up rich," explaining to Howard Stern during a 2006 interview with him that her childhood was spent balancing her time between her divorced parent's homes. She said her step-sisters, who lived at her mother's house, thought of her biological father as "Daddy Warbucks" because she would return from staying there with such extravagant presents.
Julia's father has always been incredibly supportive of his daughter. Despite his and Julia's mother divorcing when the star was only one year old, he remained a prominent, positive figure in her life.
While he made no public comments on his exact thoughts about Julia joining Seinfeld, Julia speaks fondly of her both her parents, giving them credit for encouraging her to follow her dreams when she was younger. They didn't stop her from forming a theater group with friends in her neighborhood or joining the school plays. She also credits the all-girls high-school her parents enrolled her in as the place where she found her love for acting, admitting she would have been less inclined to act so freely had boys been in the classroom.
While the VEEP star is notoriously private, she has given insights into how much her father meant to her. Julia, her husband, Brad Hall, and her father teamed up in 2015 to release a documentary about her father's $50 million art collection. The billionaire had been collecting the pieces for over 50 years, and after amassing the collection, he concluded what he wanted to do with it.
The documentary follows him as he sells almost his entire collection to put the proceeds into a trust as an endowment for the Harlem Children's Zone. This nonprofit organization seeks to improve the lives of inner-city kids and families in Harlem.
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During her promotional tour for the film, Julia shared with Entertainment Tonight that she hoped her work on the film helped showcase his two biggest passions. "He has a great passion for art, and he also has a great passion for justice, social justice. And I believe that I share that with him, which is why I'm so happy to celebrate this gift today."
There's also the heart-warming note that Julia found scrawled upon the back of one of her father's framed photographs that further proves how proud he was of his daughter's work on Seinfeld.
The actress took to Twitter, telling fans, "Today I've been going thru family photos from my dear dad RIP, organizing them, taking them out of frames, etc. Look what I found in the back of a frame-a message from the framers in Mt Kisco, NY from 1993. Fun, right?" A note on the back of the frame read, "Elaine Rules!!! We [Heart] Julia."
Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Father Was Her Toughest Critic
Seinfeld came after one of the more challenging periods of Julia Louis-Dreyfus's career. After the actress moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University, she immediately started auditioning for plays in the area. She was cast in the "Mee-Oow Show," which the actress describes as the comedy show on campus at the time. Her spectacular performance in the show caught the eye of recent Northwestern drop-out and Julia's future husband, Brad Hall.
Brad, Julia, and two fellow comedic actors joined forces to create a show called "The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee." They performed at Chicago's Piper Alley, and soon enough, SNL producer Dick Ebersol was in the room to witness their show. He signed all four of them to SNL immediately.
Julia was elated. SNL was a dream job; she scored it at only 21 years old. She dropped out of Northwestern and went to NYC with Brad and the rest of their goofy gang. Little did she know just how hard her SNL experience would be on her. Julia recalls the environment of SNL at that time as very male-centric and dog-eat-dog. On top of it, her father called at the end of the season to deliver a critical review of Julia's performance.
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"I remember him saying something really negative to me. He didn't handle it properly, and he wasn't gentle. His complaint was that I was too big, too broad. I was devastated by that," said Julia during an interview with Vanity Fair. The hardest part was that she agreed with what he was saying. "I had no understanding about performing in this new medium," said Julia. It wasn't long after that phone call from her father that SNL didn't renew Julia's contract.
How Did Julia Louis-Dreyfus Get Cast In Seinfeld?
One positive thing that came out of Julia's time at SNL was her friendship with comedian and writer Larry David. She recalls spending most of her time in his office, "moaning" about the goings on there. Days after being turned down for a massive project with Warner Bros., Julia's agent called her with the news of the script Larry David and comedian Jerry Seinfeld had been working on.
Julia's role as Elaine was written into the show after the pilot failed big time with production executives. They needed a female voice in the cast. Jerry and Larry searched far and wide to find the perfect Elaine, auditioning big names like Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Mullally. Once they saw Julia read for the role, they were sold.
Julia had hesitations but ultimately signed on. "I had a feeling about Seinfeld like I had a feeling about 'Mee-Ow,' – that I'm sitting on top of a great treasure, and no one knows it," the actress said. Most critics now consider Seinfeld to be the best sitcom of all time. At the end of her tenure on the show, Julia was making at least $600,000 per episode. It's safe to say her billionaire father respected any job that made his daughter happy, and the hefty paycheck that came along with it probably helped ease any of his worries.
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