Show brib Heroic forebears a complex childhood a strong marriage and worlds apart from motherhood put Julia Louis-Dreyfthe single woman that made her a sitcom star s us self-center-ed Never Kids Why My Watched ‘Sewfeld’ “1 WAS DOING A SCHOOL PLAY and I had to faint Julia Louis-Dreyfus f Julia is the granddaughter of Pierre Louis-Dreyf- us a Jewish hero of the to visit her father and his family in WesachesterCounty north of New York City I asked if shuttling between the a second look When I was growing up they did It's not that I wasn't legitimate I don’t think anybody made me feel that way But in the family I lived with I didn't have the same last name as every- - said rrifaring to a moment during the fifth grade 1 don't even remember why this character in the play fainted but I and I got an unintentional laugh I thought 'Oh that's weird I wonder what I did that was funny' I'd stumbled upon a little gold nugget that I picked up and put in my pocket I discovered I really liked making people laugh" For nine seasons Julia 37 made people laugh playing Elaine Benes on Seinfeld the NBC show that d TV comebecame the nation's 1994 in it one after replaced year dy Cheers on Thursday nights The show brought her TV stardom plus Emmy and Golden Globe awards Today with die end of the network ran of Seinfeld she has die option of stairing in her own TV scries making movies or doing both— a major accomplishment for any performer I visited Julia Louis-Dreyfin Los Angeles where she lives in a Spanish-styl- e house overioolmtg die fcific Ocean with her husband the TV writerproduc-e- r Brad Hall 40 and their two sons Hemy ft and Chariie I I wanted to leam what led Julia to acting and kept her go- ing despite disappointments and what the future held for her I began by asking about her childhood "My grandmother was very funny very wry" she stated smiling "And my French Resistance who flew 88 combat missions for de Gaulle's Free French Air Force during World War II Her d very funny There's a lot of in my family There was also a funny sense of what is right and what is strong It come from a church didn't wrong took me to a mother Although my Unitarian church on occasion my val- ues came from my family' tied Dr Thomas Bowles a surgeon There had been nothing like it before They lived in Washington DC where Julia was raised with two half-sistHer father also remarried giving Julia As a child on two more half-siste-rs school weekends and in die summers Julia regularly flew from Washington "Oh yes" she replied gendy “When I was 7 1 stained doing that litde com- mute or commute These there are many of these mishmash families and people probably don't take Louis-Dreyf- fa-di- two families had been emotionally dif-ftcuh for her as a young giri us top-nse- r N i : ft BY dier William escaped France as a boy to make a new life in the US Today he heads Louis Dreyfus & Cie a comntodity-aitoilrag- e company When Julia was a year old her par- ents divorced Her mother Judith Nazi-occupi- mar-mothe- r's m DOTSON RADER twa HHtmcum nrjor kattjgammasjaisor r 1 t was a show about four horrible selfish people locked in fI their own little world And why is that JL self-involv-ed fonny? I think Seinfeld redefined sitcom de one else I didn't take my stepfather's name I kept my father's name I think people were probably perplexed won-dadering 'Why do you have a last name different from the rest of the family ? I ys i |