Lisa Valerie Kudrow, born July 30, 1963, isan actress, comedian, writer, and producer from the United States. After appearing in various 1980s televisionsitcoms, Kudrow rose to international recognition in the 1990s as Phoebe Buffay in the Americancomedy Friends, for which she received Primetime Emmy and Screen Actors Guild honors. On both Friends and Mad About You, Kudrowplayed Phoebe's twin sist
er Ursula. Kudrow has won multiple awards, includinga Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, two Screen ActorsGuild Awards, and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Her Friends character was a huge hit duringthe show's run and was eventually hailed as one of the finest female characters in Americantelevision history. Kudrow made her film debut in the cult comedyRomy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), followed by an acclaimed performance in theromantic comedy The Opposite of Sex (1998), for which she won the New York Film CriticsCircle Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Awardfor Best Supporting Female. She went on to create, write, and appear inthe HBO comedy series The Comeback in 2005, which was revived for a second season nineyears later. For both seasons, Kudrow was nominated fora Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2007, Kudrow gained critical acclaim forher performance in the film Kabluey, and she also participated in the box office smashP.S. I Love You.
She created and acted in the Showtime seriesWeb Therapy (2011–2015), for which she received a Primetime Emmy nomination. She is a producer of the TLC reality showWho Do You Think You Are, for which she has received five Primetime Emmy nominations. Kudrow has also appeared in films such asAnalyze This (1999), Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), Bandslam (2008), Hotel for Dogs (2009), EasyA (2010), Neighbors (2014) and its sequel Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), The Girlon the Train (2016), The Boss Baby (2017), Long Shot (2019), and Booksmart (2019). (2019). Her films have earned more than $2 billionglobally. Lisa Kudrow Early life: Lisa Kudrow was born in Encino, Los Angeles,California, to travel agent Nedra S. (née Stern) and physician Lee N. Kudrow, who specializedin headache therapy.
Helene Marla (born 1955) is her older sister,and David B. Kudrow, a Santa Monica neurologist, is her older brother (born 1957). Kudrow was reared in a Jewish home of middle-classparents and had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony. Her ancestors came from Belarus, Germany,Hungary, and Poland, and some of them settled in the Minsk region village of Ilya. David Kudrow (born in Mogilev, Belarus) andGertrude Farberman were Kudrow's paternal grandparents (born in Ilya, Belarus). Mera Mordejovich, her paternal great-grandmother,was murdered in Ilya during the Holocaust. Her father's paternal grandmother immigratedto Brooklyn, where he grew up. Kudrow went at Tarzana, California's PortolaMiddle School. She graduated from Taft High School in WoodlandHills, Los Angeles, which was also attended by N.W.A members Ice Cube and Eazy-E, as wellas actress Robin Wright. Kudrow graduated from Vassar College witha Bachelor of Arts in Biology, wanting to become a headache expert like her medicalfather. While breaking into acting, Kudrow workedon her father's staff for eight years, obtaining a research credit on his study on the comparativelikelihood of left-handed people suffering cluster headaches. Lisa Kudrow Career:
1989–1994: Early career She began her comic career as a member ofThe Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv and sketch comedy school, at the encouragementof her brother's boyhood friend, comic Jon Lovitz. Cynthia Szigeti, her improv teacher at TheGroundlings, has been credited with transforming Kudrow's outlook on acting, calling her "thebest thing that occurred, on so many levels." Kudrow was a member of the short-lived improvtroupe Unexpected Company, along with Conan O'Brien and director Tim Hillman. She was also the sole female member of theTransformers Comedy Troupe on a regular basis. She had a guest appearance on an episode ofthe NBC sitcom Cheers. In 1990, she auditioned for Saturday NightLive, but the show chose Julia Sweeney instead. She appeared in three episodes of season oneof Bob Newhart's sitcom Bob (CBS, 1992–1993) as Kathy Fleisher, a character she portrayedafter appearing in the series finale of Newhart's previous series Newhart. Prior to Friends, she starred in at leasttwo network pilots: NBC's Just Temporary (also known as Temporarily Yours) in 1989, as Nicole,and CBS' Close Encounters (also known as Matchmaker) in 1990, as a Valley girl. Kudrow was originally cast as Roz Doyle onFrasier, but the part was recast with Peri Gilpin during the pilot episode's filming. Kudrow stated in 2000 that when rehearsalsbegan, "I knew it wasn't going to work.
I could feel it all slipping away, and myworry only made matters worse." Ursula Buffay, the eccentric waitress on theNBC sitcom Mad About You, was her first recurrent television role. Kudrow would repeat the role on the NBC comedyFriends, where she also co-starred as Ursula's twin sister, massage therapist Phoebe Buffay. 1994–2004: Friends and breakthrough Kudrow was the first member of the Friendsensemble to receive an Emmy Award, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998for her lead role as Phoebe on Friends (NBC, 1994–2004). According to the Guinness Book of World Records(2005), Kudrow and her Friends co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox were the highestpaid TV actresses of all time, earning $1 million per episode during the ninth and tenthseasons. During her time on Friends, Kudrow featuredin a number of humorous films, including Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, HangingUp, Marci X, Dr.
Dolittle 2, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That, as well as tragicfilms like Wonderland and The Opposite of Sex. During her time on Friends, she also appearedas a guest star on a number of television shows, including The Simpsons, Hope and Gloria,King of the Hill, and hosting Saturday Night Live. 2004–present: Post-Friends Kudrow featured as Valerie Cherish in theone-season HBO comedy The Return (which aired on June 5, 2005), which was about a has-beensitcom star seeking to make a comeback. She was also a co-creator, a writer, and anexecutive producer. HBO resurrected the series in 2014, nine yearsafter the first season, for a shortened second season. For her work on The Comeback, Kudrow won twoEmmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. 'Is or Isn't Entertainment' is her producingcompany. Kudrow is the executive producer of the Americanversion of the UK television series Who Do You Think You Are?, which follows celebritiesas they trace their ancestors. The first series' topics included Kudrow herself,who discovered her great-grandmother was murdered during the Holocaust. On Lstudio.com, Kudrow co-created Online Therapy,an improvisational comedic web series
. The improv series, which debuted online in2008, has received multiple Webby nominations, including one for Kudrow, who plays therapistFiona Wallice. She provides three-minute iChat sessions toher patients. A reformatted, half-hour version of the showlaunched on Showtime in July 2011, before being discontinued after four seasons in 2015. Kudrow has appeared as a guest star on severaltelevision shows, including Cougar Town, BoJack Horseman, Angie Tribeca, Unbreakable KimmySchmidt, and Scandal. Following Friends, Kudrow appeared in a numberof comedy films, including Happy Endings, Hotel for Dogs, Easy A, Neighbors and itssequel, Neighbors 2:
Sorority Rising, Long Shot, and Booksmart. She also co-starred in the thriller film TheGirl on the Train and the romantic drama picture P.S. I Love You. In 2020, Kudrow appears as Hypatia of Alexandriain The Good Place's season 4 episode 12 "Patty," and as Maggie Naird in the Netflix comedyseries Space Force. She is presently an executive producer ofthe syndicated game show 25 Words or Less, together with Mary McCormack; on occasion,Kudrow herself is one of the two celebrity guests playing with a contestant on the show. Lisa Kudrow Personal life: Kudrow married French advertising executiveMichel Stern on May 27, 1995. Julian Murray Stern is their son. Friends' fourth season featured Kudrow's character,Phoebe, having triplets as a surrogate mother for her younger half-brother Frank (GiovanniRibisi) and his wife Alice (Debra Jo Rupp). During an interview with Marc Maron in 2019,Kudrow confessed that she suffered from body dysmorphic disorder while working on the program.
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