Julia Louis-Dreyfus is best known for her roles as Elaine Benes on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and as Christine Campbell on the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine.

She has won two Emmy Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Louis-Dreyfus was born in New York City, to Judith, a writer and special-needs tutor, and Gérard Louis-Dreyfus (also known as William Louis-Dreyfus), a French attorney and business executive. Her parents divorced a year later. After relocating to Washington, D.C., when Julia was eight, her mother married L. Thompson Bowles, Dean of the George Washington University Medical School.

Louis-Dreyfus has a half-sister on her Louis-Dreyfus side, Phoebe, a social worker. Through her father, a billionaire heir to the Louis Dreyfus Group, one of the world’s largest commodities trading and merchandising firms, she had a cousin, Robert Louis-Dreyfus (1946-2009), former CEO of Adidas and owner of the Olympique de Marseille soccer team. Robert died in July 2009 after a long battle with leukemia, aged 63.

Louis-Dreyfus spent her childhood in several states and countries in connection with her stepfather’s work with Project HOPE, including Sri Lanka, Colombia and Tunisia. She graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland in 1979, and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she studied theater, appeared in the Mee-Ow Show, and was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. After three years she left to begin work on Saturday Night Live, being rewarded by the University in 2007 with an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.

While at Northwestern, Louis-Dreyfus met future husband and Saturday Night Live comedian Brad Hall. She, Hall, and future SNL writer Paul Barosse all were members of the community’s storefront theater troupe, the Practical Theatre Company.

Louis-Dreyfus and Hall have two sons, Henry (born June 1992) and Charles (born May 1997).

Louis-Dreyfus was a cast member on NBC’s Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985. While on SNL, she met writer Larry David, who would later co-create Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus also appeared in a few sitcoms and films over the years, but is best known for her nine-season role as “Elaine Benes” on NBC’s Seinfeld from 1990 to 1998, appearing in all but three episodes. On the “Notes About Nothing” featurette on the Season 1-2 DVD, Jerry Seinfeld notes that Louis-Dreyfus’ ability to eat a peanut M&M without cracking the peanut aptly describes the actress: “She cracks you up without breaking your nuts”.

After Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus began a new NBC sitcom, Watching Ellie, which was canceled after two abbreviated seasons. Louis-Dreyfus came to be seen as a victim of the “Seinfeld Curse”, a term applied to typecast actors who, after appearing in an enormously popular television series or movie, have trouble finding popularity in other roles.

Her mid- to late-2000s series, The New Adventures of Old Christine, receives high ratings. Louis-Dreyfus won the Outstanding Actress Emmy Award for her work on the show’s first season, exactly 10 years after her Seinfeld win. Referring to the curse, she stated in her acceptance speech, “I’m not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!”

She had a recurring guest role as the deceitful prosecutor and love interest of Michael Bluth, Maggie Lizer, on Arrested Development. She has also appeared on The Simpsons, providing the voice for Snake’s girlfriend Gloria on three episodes.

She returned to host Saturday Night Live on May 13, 2006, becoming the first female former cast member to return as host. (Gilda Radner was supposed to host in the 1987-88 season, season 13, but the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike cut the season short, and Radner died of ovarian cancer a year later.) Louis-Dreyfus appeared with former Seinfeld mates Jason Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld in the opening monologue, parodying the so-called “Seinfeld Curse”. She mocked the curse once again while accepting her Emmy award in 2006. She has also appeared on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s show Curb Your Enthusiasm, playing herself fictionally trying to break the “curse” by planning to star in a show in which she would play an actress affected by a Seinfeld-like curse. She has currently been nominated for all the show’s seasons for Emmys, but has lost to Tina Fey for 30 Rock and America Ferrara for Ugly Betty.

On June 21, 2009, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced Louis-Dreyfus will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the upcoming year.

She will be appearing along with rest of the cast of Seinfeld on the seventh season premiere of Larry David’s sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm in the fall of 2009.