Carol Leifer is an American comedian, writer, producer and actress whose career as a stand-up comedian started in the 1970s when she was in college. David Letterman discovered her performing in a comedy club in the 1980s and she would later be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman over 25 times. She has written many television scripts including for The Larry Sanders Show, Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. Leifer's inner-monologue driven, observational style is often autobiographical, encompassing subjects about her Jewish ancestry and upbringing, coming out, same-sex marriage, relationships and parenting.
Leifer is a stand-up comedian, writer, producer and actor. She performed stand-up comedy on Late Night with David Letterman 25 times. Leifer also appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Dr. Katz, Politically Incorrect, Hollywood Squares, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Her stand-up experience also includes opening for Jerry Seinfeld and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra praised Leifer as "one funny broad!" and "I wish my mother had been that funny – I wouldn't have had to work so hard." In 1988, she had her own special on Cinemax titled Carol Doesn't Leifer Anymore, which was produced by David Letterman. This was shortly followed by the specials Carol Leifer Comedy Cruise and Really Big Shoo!. She wrote and starred in the 1992 Showtime TV film Gaudy, Bawdy & Blue, a mockumentary about fictional aged comedienne Rusty Berman, told through interviews and flashbacks; the film had a similar concept to the film Mr. Saturday Night, which had come out several months earlier. Lefier was a writer on Saturday Night Live during the 1985/1986 season. She has also been involved in television shows including Seinfeld, It's Like, You Know... and The Larry Sanders Show. She has written for the Academy Awards for most of the 21st century. Her hosting duties have included episodes of A&E's Caroline's Comedy Hour, Talk Soup and Later. Leifer starred in, created and executive-produced the 1997 WB sitcom Alright Already, called one of the "10 Best New Shows of the New Season" by the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. Despite good reviews, the show only ran one season. With Mitchell Hurwitz, Leifer created the short-lived The Ellen Show. She was a writer and co-executive producer on the 2007-13 CBS sitcom Rules of Engagement. On September 14, 2007, Leifer won an auction for the handwritten notes used by Michael Vick during his apology for his role in dogfighting. Leifer appeared as a contestant on the third season of Celebrity Apprentice. She was the first to be eliminated, on the premiere episode, which aired on March 14, 2010. She has been nominated for four Emmy Awards.
''Seinfeld''
Leifer joined the Seinfeld writing staff during its fifth season, and wrote six episodes for the show between then and its seventh season. She has been dubbed "the real Elaine", as the series' character, Elaine Benes, was partially based on her. Her episodes, listed chronologically, are: ;Season five
"The Lip Reader"
"The Hamptons"
;Season six
"The Secretary"
"The Beard"
"The Understudy"
;Season seven
"The Rye"
Other work
Her first book of humorous essays, entitled When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win, was released on March 10, 2009. In it, she discusses the moment she discovered she might be gay and how her life changed for the better.
Personal life
From 1981 to 1987, Leifer was married to comic Ritch Shydner, whose gentile status troubled Leifer's father. In 1996, Leifer met Lori Wolf, a Jewish real estate executive, when they shared a table at a Project Angel Food charity dinner in Los Angeles. Although Leifer had identified as heterosexual up until then, she later contacted Wolf through the host of their table, though Wolf initially rebuffed Leifer's overtures because Wolf was in a relationship at the time. Wolf contacted Leifer weeks later, after Wolf had ended her relationship, and began one with Leifer. They moved in together in 2005, and in acclimating herself to Wolf's pets, Leifer became an animal rights activist. It was for this reason that she chose North Shore Animal League as her charity when she appeared in The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2006 they purchased a $3.2-million, home in the Santa Monica Hills, as part of their preparations to adopt their nine-month-old son, Bruno Leifer-Wolf, who was born in Guatemala in 2007. That year, Leifer proposed to Wolf over dinner at the Palm Restaurant in Beverly Hills. On December 5, 2015, they were married by Rabbi Ron Stern at the Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles. In attendance were Jane Lynch, Larry David, Bill Maher, Garry Shandling, Henry Winkler, Larry Miller, Jay Leno and Paul Reiser. Leifer has become vegan, saying "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."
