Lisa Kudrow

Lisa Valerie Kudrow (/ˈkuːdroʊ/; born July 30, 1963) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer. She gained worldwide recognition for her ten-season run as Phoebe Buffay on the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades, including six Emmy Award nominations, winning once in 1998, and twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, winning twice in 1996 and 2000.
She went on to produce, write and star in the 2005 HBO series The Comeback, which was revived nine years later and began airing its second season in November 2014. She received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for both seasons, in 2006 and 2015 respectively. She also starred in Web Therapy, which aired for four seasons on Showtime. As a producer of the series, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class – Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program for the show in 2012. She is also one of the executive producers of the TLC reality program Who Do You Think You Are and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Program for the series in 2012 and 2014.
Away from television, Kudrow has also appeared in many films, including Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), The Opposite of Sex (1998), Analyze This (1999) and its sequel Analyze That (2002), Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), Wonderland (2003), Happy Endings (2005), P.S. I Love You (2007), Bandslam (2008), Hotel for Dogs (2009), Easy A (2010), Neighbors (2014), its sequel Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) and The Girl on the Train (2016).

Lisa Kudrow was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Nedra S. (née Stern, born 1934), a travel agent, and Dr. Lee N. Kudrow (born 1933), a physician who specialized in the treatment of headaches. She has an elder sister, Helene Marla (born 1955), and an elder brother, Santa Monica neurologist David B. Kudrow (born 1957). Kudrow was raised in a middle-class Jewish family and had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony. Her ancestors emigrated from Belarus, Germany, Hungary and Poland, and some of them lived in the village of Ilya, in the Minsk area. Her paternal great-grandmother, Mera Mordejovich, was murdered in Ilya during the Holocaust. Her paternal grandmother, Grunya Farberman, immigrated to Brooklyn, where her father grew up.

Kudrow attended Portola Middle School in Tarzana, California. In 1979, at the age of 16, she underwent rhinoplasty to reduce the size of her nose. She graduated from Taft High School in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. Kudrow received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Vassar College, intending to follow in her father's footsteps and research headaches. Kudrow worked on her father's staff for eight years while breaking into acting, earning a research credit on his study on the comparative likelihood of left-handed individuals developing cluster headaches.

Kudrow visiting Vassar College in 2004

1989–1994: Early career

At the urging of her brother's childhood friend, comedian Jon Lovitz, she began her comedic career as a member of The Groundlings, an improv and sketch comedy school in Los Angeles. Kudrow has credited Cynthia Szigeti, her improv teacher at The Groundlings, for changing her perspective on acting, calling her "the best thing that happened, on so many levels." Briefly, Kudrow joined with Conan O'Brien and director Tim Hillman in the short-lived improv troupe Unexpected Company. She was also the only regular female member of the Transformers Comedy Troupe. She played a role in an episode of the NBC sitcom Cheers. She tried out for Saturday Night Live in 1990, but the show chose Julia Sweeney instead. She had a recurring role as Kathy Fleisher in three episodes of season one of the Bob Newhart sitcom Bob (CBS, 1992–1993), a role she played after taking part in the memorable series finale of Newhart's previous series Newhart. Prior to Friends, she appeared in at least two produced network pilots: NBC's Just Temporary (also known as Temporarily Yours) in 1989, playing Nicole; and CBS' Close Encounters (also known as Matchmaker) in 1990, playing a Valley girl.

Kudrow was cast to play the role of Roz Doyle in Frasier, but the role was re-cast with Peri Gilpin during the filming of the pilot episode. Kudrow said in 2000 that when rehearsals started, "I knew it wasn't working. I could feel it all slipping away, and I was panicking, which only made things worse". Her first recurring television role was Ursula Buffay, the eccentric waitress on the NBC sitcom Mad About You. Kudrow would reprise the character on the NBC sitcom Friends, in which Kudrow co-starred as massage therapist Phoebe Buffay, Ursula's twin sister.

1994–2004: Breakthrough

For her starring role as Phoebe on Friends (NBC, 1994–2004) Kudrow won the 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. According to the Guinness Book of World Records (2005), Kudrow and co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox became the highest paid TV actresses of all time, earning $1 million per episode for the ninth and tenth seasons of Friends. During her tenure on Friends Kudrow appeared in multiple comedic films such as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Hanging Up, Marci X, Dr. Dolittle 2, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That, and dramatic films, such as Wonderland and The Opposite of Sex.

Lisa Kudrow attends the 2009 Streamy Awards

She also guest starred on numerous television series during Friends, including, The Simpsons, Hope and Gloria, King of the Hill, and hosting Saturday Night Live.

2004–present: Post-Friends

Kudrow starred as protagonist Valerie Cherish on the single-season HBO series The Comeback (premiered June 5, 2005), about a has-been sitcom star trying for a comeback. She also served as co-creator, writer, and executive producer. The series was cancelled by HBO before being renewed for a second season nearly a decade after being originally cancelled. Kudrow received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on The Comeback.

Kudrow served as the executive producer for the American version of the UK television series Who Do You Think You Are? for NBC, in which celebrities trace their family trees. The subjects of the first series included Kudrow herself, in which it was discovered her great-grandmother died in the Holocaust. On March 19, 2010, Kudrow’s search for her roots in eastern Europe was broadcast. Kudrow co-created an improvised comedy web series, Web Therapy on Lstudio.com. The improv series, which launched online in 2008, has earned several Webby nominations and one Outstanding Comedic Performance Webby for Kudrow, who plays therapist of unspecified credentials Fiona Wallice. She offers her patients three-minute sessions over iChat. In July 2011, a reformatted, half-hour version of the show premiered on Showtime, before being cancelled in 2015 after four seasons. Kudrow has guest starred on multiple television series such as Cougar Town, BoJack Horseman, Angie Tribeca, and Scandal.

Following Friends, Kudrow has also appeared in films such as Easy A, Hotel for Dogs, Happy Endings, and Neighbors. In 2016, she reprised her role as Carol Gladstone in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and co-starred in the thriller film The Girl on the Train.

On May 27, 1995, Kudrow married Michel Stern, a French advertising executive. Kudrow claims to have been a virgin until her wedding night, due to her mother's advice. They have one son, Julian Murray Stern, who was born on May 7, 1998. Kudrow's pregnancy was written into Friends (seasons 4 and 5), with her character Phoebe having triplets as a surrogate mother for her brother Frank and his wife Alice because they were not able to have children.

Lisa Kudrow

Film

Television