Background

The daughter of French-American billionaire Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was born in Manhattan on January 13, 1961. The girl’s parents divorced while she was still an infant, and Julia subsequently moved with her mother to Washington, D.C.  When Louis-Dreyfus was five, her mother married surgeon Tom Bowles, the dean of George Washington University Medical School. When her stepfather (Bowles) worked for Project HOPE during the girl’s early childhood, Louis-Dreyfus and her family spent some time living in Sri Lanka.

In 1979, Louis-Dreyfus graduated from Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, a prestigious all-girls’ school for grades 3 to 12, whose alumnae include such notables as: Susan Ford Bales, Shelley Moore Capito, Beka Economopoulos, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Christine Blasey Ford. Louis-Dreyfus thereafter attended Northwestern University but left early in order to join the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1982, a gig she went on to hold until 1985.

Louis-Dreyfus subsequently played minor roles in various TV shows (such as Family Ties) and films (like Christmas Vacation). Her big break, however, came in 1989 when she was cast as the character Elaine Benes on the popular sitcom Seinfeld, whose co-creator, Larry David, she had previously met when Mr. David was a writer for SNL. After her Seinfeld days, Louis-Dreyfus starred in TV series such as The New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep.

Committed Democrat

Louis-Dreyfus is an outspoken supporter of Democratic Party candidates and causes. She personally campaigned for Al Gore in Pennsylvania during the 2000 presidential election season, and she endorsed Barack Obama’s presidential bids in both 2008 and 2012. And, like many Hollywood entertainers, she became particularly vocal about her leftwing politics during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his subsequent term in office from 2017 to 2021. In 2016, Louis-Dreyfus vowed to vote for “whoever the Democrat [presidential nominee] is”; described that year’s Republican National Convention as a “national nightmare”; and stated that the prospect of a possible Trump presidency was “horrifying and funny and also embarrassing.”

Just before Election Day in November 2018, Louis-Dreyfus co-hosted a “Telethon For America.” Co-sponsored by Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote and GLAAD, the event featured various entertainers advocating on behalf of the Democratic Party.

Trump-Hater

During her acceptance speech at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards ceremony in late January 2017, Louis-Dreyfus used the occasion to attack President Trump, who had taken office just days earlier. Alluding to the then-swirling accusations that Trump had stolen the 2016 election by secretly colluding with Russian operatives – claims that subsequently would be thoroughly disproven – the actress joked that she had earned her SAG award without any assistance from “the Russians.” Reminding the audience that her “father [had] fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France,” Louis-Dreyfus also described herself as “an American patriot” who was proud to denounce the Trump administration’s “immigration ban” as an “un-American” policy that was “a blemish” on the nation’s reputation.

On November 4, 2018 – two days before that year’s midterm elections — Louis-Dreyfus tweeted: “For years Donald Trump has been spreading fear, encouraging racism and inciting violence.” She also appeared in a “Multiply Your Vote” ad in which she portrayed President Trump as a political figure who appealed to a Nazi mentality. “We call on the president to unequivocally denounce fascism, neo-Nazism and white nationalism,” she said, adding: “On November 6th, vote for unity, vote for decency, vote.”

In February 2019, Louis-Dreyfus told an audience at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour that she “for goddamn sure” would support whoever the Democratic Party might nominate as its presidential candidate in 2020. Later that month, she said in a Time interview that Donald Trump was a “pretend, fake president” and a “complete moron, start to finish.”

In June 2019, Louis-Dreyfus starred in a live-streamed play that paid homage to former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s probe of the aforementioned allegations of Trump-Russia collusion vis-à-vis the 2016 presidential election. Titled The Investigation: A Search For The Truth in 10 Acts, the play also featured Hollywood leftists like Alyssa Milano, Mark Hamill, Sigourney Weaver, John Lithgow, John Malkovich, and Jason Alexander. Former Secretary of State John Kerry praised the one-night production as an “act of public service by these artists.”

In December 2019, Louis-Dreyfus joined Hollywood leftists like Alec Baldwin, Alyssa Milano, and Rob Reiner in striving to promote MoveOn.org’s planned series of nationwide demonstrations advocating the impeachment of President Trump. “The bigger these marches are, the harder it will be for Trump to pretend he hasn’t been caught in a botched bribery scheme and that millions of American [sic] now see him as a liar and a fraud,” Louis-Dreyfus tweeted on December 11.

Advocate of Universal Health Care

Upon announcing that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2017, Louis-Dreyfus asserted that it was time to “make universal health care a reality.”

“Multiply Your Vote”

In September 2018, Louis-Dreyfus promoted the “Multiply Your Vote” initiative, urging Americans to “vote Democratic.”

Contempt for Brett Kavanaugh

In September 2018 as well, Louis-Dreyfus signed a letter in support of fellow Holton-Arms School alumna Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed that President Trump’s then-Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, had sexually assaulted her at a party 36 years earlier when both were teenagers. “We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story,” the letter read. “It demands a thorough and independent investigation before the Senate can reasonably vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court.”

In October 2018, Louis-Dreyfus expressed outrage when the FBI’s seventh investigation into Kavanaugh yielded no evidence of any past sexual misconduct. In response to the Bureau’s report on the matter, the actress tweeted a cartoon depiction of “Lady Justice” being physically assaulted and smothered by a Republican.

Supporting the Equal Rights Amendment

In an attempt to resurrect support for the Equal Rights Amendment, a 1972 feminist-led initiative that had failed to gain ratification in the Seventies, Louis-Dreyfus claimed in October 2019 that “women don’t have equal rights in the U.S. Constitution.” Additionally, she suggested that “we can fix that by flipping Virginia’s state legislature [from Republican to Democrat] on November 5th” (Election Day).

Advocating the Commutation of a Murderer’s Death Sentence

In November 2019, Louis-Dreyfus boasted that she had signed a letter demanding that Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, commute the sentence of death-row inmate Rodney Reed, a black man who had been convicted for the 1996 rape and strangulation murder of a 19-year-old white woman named Stacey Stites.

Supporter of Radical Environmentalism

On December 3, 2019, Louis-Dreyfus tweeted in support of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and what she described as its commitment to “defending laws that will help us ensure there’s still a planet left for the next generation.” She also praised the organization’s willingness to “take the president [Trump] or his administration to court,” yet she failed to acknowledge NRDC’s close ties to China — by far the world’s leading polluter. According to the NRDC website, “China has made a serious commitment to turning its cities into healthier places to live and currently leads the world in renewable energy installation and electric vehicle penetration.”

On Earth Day (April 22) 2022, Louis-Dreyfus encouraged her Twitter followers to donate money to the environmentalist organization Greenpeace in order to help “protect our global oceans, forests and climate.

Supporting Biden-Harris in 2020

In July 2020, Louis-Dreyfus hosted a virtual fundraiser – with tickets costing between $1,000 and $10,000 apiece — for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Speaking to more than 650 donors and campaign supporters at the event, Biden suggested that President Trump intended to “indirectly steal” the election by “arguing that mail-in ballots” – which would play a larger role in 2020 than in any prior election in American history – “don’t work.”

In August 2020, Louis-Dreyfus served as the celebrity host for the final night of the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris.

On October 4, 2020, Louis-Dreyfus held a Veep cast virtual reunion to support the Biden-Harris campaign and the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “Anything you donate will be used to ensure that Trump loses Wisconsin, and thereby the White House,” the event’s official invitation stated.

Aiming to “Turn Texas Blue”

Later that month – on October 23 — Louis-Dreyfus held a Seinfeld partial cast reunion with Jason Alexander and Larry David in an effort to help “turn Texas blue.” To promote the event, which was moderated by NBC late-night host Seth Meyers, the Seinfeld trio released a statement on October 20 that read:

“Texas is a battleground state, period. We that we had to reunite for something special and the movement on the ground for Texas Democrats up and down the ballot is the perfect opportunity to do just that. Texans are getting out to vote in droves and showing the world that Texas has never been a red state, it’s been a non-voting state. We couldn’t be more thrilled to host a ‘fundraiser about something’ for a terrific organization like the Texas Democratic Party, who are building the movement necessary to turn Texas blue in 14 days.”

“Turning Georgia Blue”

In December 2020, Louis-Dreyfus joined Stacey Abrams to fundraise on behalf of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the Democrat candidates in the upcoming U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia, sl;ated for January 5, 2021. “I adore that woman [Abrams] and I adore everything that she’s done for Georgia,” Louis-Dreyfus said in a tweet, “which is why I’m going to be talking to her on Tuesday, December 29 to help raise funds for turning Georgia blue, blue, blue, and I hope you’ll join.”

Supporting the “For The People Act”

In March 2021, Louis-Dreyfus publicly endorsed the Democrat-led “For the People Act” (H.R. 1), a 791-page piece of legislation whose enactment, according to the Heritage Foundation, would:

• “Seize the authority of states to regulate voter registration and the voting process by forcing states to implement early voting, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, online voter registration, and no-fault absentee balloting.”
• “Degrade the accuracy of registration lists by requiring states to automatically register all individuals (as opposed to “citizens”) from state and federal databases.”
• “Require states to count ballots cast by voters outside of their assigned precincts, overriding the precinct system used by almost all states that allows election officials to monitor votes, staff polling places, provide enough ballots, and prevent election fraud.”
• “Mandate no-fault absentee ballots, which are the tool of choice for vote thieves. It would ban witness signature or notarization requirements for absentee ballots; force states to accept absentee ballots received up to 10 days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day; and require states to allow vote trafficking (vote harvesting).”
• “Prevent election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters.”
• “Ban state voter ID laws by forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID and merely signing a statement in which they claim they are who they say they are.”
• “Require states to restore the ability of felons to vote the moment they are out of prison regardless of uncompleted parole, probation, or restitution requirements.”
• “Transfer the right to draw congressional districts from state legislatures to ‘independent’ commissions whose members are unaccountable to voters.”
• “[P]ermit the IRS to investigate and consider the political and policy positions of nonprofit organizations before granting tax-exempt status, thus enabling IRS officials to target organizations engaging in First Amendment activity with disfavored views.”

Louis-Dreyfus characterized H.R. 1 — which was clearly designed to ensure Democrat electoral victories for years to come — as a “historic bill that will enact essential voter projections and reforms.” She also tweeted a graphic from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund which claimed that the bill would “protect our voting rights.”

On June 22, 2021, Louis-Dreyfus again advocated for H.R. 1 on Twitter. Her post included a link to a message from a leftwing alliance known as Just Democracy, which stated: “We’re facing one of the greatest threats to modern American democracy as one political party [the Republicans] tries to ensure minority rule by preventing Black and Brown people from voting.” A self-described “coalition of grassroots racial justice groups” advocating for the “dismantling [of] the systems that preserve white supremacy and silence Black and Brown people,” Just Democracy promotes such objectives as “eliminating the [Senate] filibuster, abolishing the electoral college, reforming the Supreme Court, and passing D.C. statehood.”

Reverence for Ketanji Brown Jackson

Following the confirmation of Biden nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2022, Louis-Dreyfus called Jackson “an absolute inspiration.”

Abortion Rights

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. “No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” said Politico. Whereas Roe had guaranteed federal constitutional protections for abortion rights, the new ruling would return responsibility for those rights to each individual state. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in his opinion, adding: “We hold that Roe and Casey [a 1992 decision that largely reaffirmed the rights set forth in Roe] must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

In response to the Court’s decision, an outraged Louis-Dreyfus took to Twitter to pledge her support for efforts to help women nationwide pay for abortions. “I’m really angry,” she tweeted. “How about you? I’m matching $10K in donations to 80+ abortion funds that help arrange & pay for people to get the abortion care they need. Please donate here to get matched and let me know below when you do.”   The actress later attended a pro-abortion rally in New York, holding a sign that read: “If Men Got Pregnant You Could Get An Abortion At An ATM.”

In October 2022, Louis-Dreyfus collaborated with actor Martin Sheen to help raise $700,000 on behalf of the Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin. According to Deadline, the respective casts of Sheen’s The West Wing and Louis-Dreyfus’ Veep “re-enacted … abortion-themed scenes from each of their shows.”

Attending Events at the Biden White House

In December 2022, Louis-Dreyfus attended the Biden White House’s first state dinner, which was held for French President Emmanuel Macron.

In a March 2023 ceremony at the White House, President Biden awarded Louis-Dreyfus a National Medal of Arts.

Enormous Wealth

As of May 2023, Louis-Dreyfus had an estimated net worth of $250 million.