July 27, 1956– Carol Leifer graduated from Binghampton University with a degree in Theatre. She started in stand-up after she accompanied her then boyfriend, comic Paul Reiser, to his gig at Catch A Raising Star. She enjoyed a successful career in the tough male-domintaed world of stand-up & appeared on Late Night With David Letterman 26 times. Leifer moved to writing & has won Emmys for her work on The Larry Sanders Show, Saturday Night Live, Rules Of Engagement (also executive producer), Modern Family & most famously Seinfeld, where she has been dubbed- the real inspiration the character of Elaine. She once opened for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas. Sinatra said of her: “She’s one funny broad!”
Leifer had a big break with an appearance on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. But to illustrate how easy it is for a woman comic, it took 12 years & 22 auditions for her to get the gig.
On Leifer’s 40th birthday she had a big revelation:
“I suddenly had this really mad desire to have an affair with a woman, I was divorced. I was childless. I figured there’s got to be one more way to really tick off my mom. I told Lori that I kind of had this crush on her, & she was, like: ‘No way. I’m not going to be a science experiment for some straight girl!’ I used my patented line that I’ve used easily for the last 20 years: ‘Well, what would it hurt if we just made out?’ Heard the song lyric ‘I kissed a girl & I liked it’? Well, I kissed a girl & my head spun around.”
Carol Leifer lives in Santa Monica with her fiancé real estate developer & power lesbian Lori Wolf.
“I recently became vegan because I felt that as a Jewish lesbian, I wasn’t part of a small enough minority. So now I’m a Jewish lesbian vegan.”
Leifer has a volume of very humorous essays When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win (2009) & a smart, funny self-help book How To Succeed In Business Without Really Crying (2014).
“So much of success in any career is tenacity & persistence. After 18 auditions I could have said, ‘No, thanks, I’m not showing up for audition number 19’”.
“I’m not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.”
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