Jason Alexander
Jason Alexander (born Jason Scott Greenspan, September 23, 1959, in Newark, New Jersey), is a television, cinema and musical theatre actor.
Personal life
Family
Alexander is the son of Alex and Ruth Greenspan. He has a half-sister, Karen Van Horn, and a half-brother, Michael Greenspan. He has been married to Daena E. Title since May 31, 1981. They have two children, Gabriel and Noah.[1]
Education
Alexander is a 1977 graduate of Livingston High School in Livingston, New Jersey. He attended Boston University, but left the summer before his senior year after getting work in New York City. He was later given an honorary degree. [2]
Acting roles
Alexander was one of the stars of the award-winning television sitcom Seinfeld in which he played the neurotic ne'er-do-well George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld's best friend. He has also appeared in a number of movies (Love! Valour! Compassion!, Dunston Checks In, and Pretty Woman among them) and did some work as a director, including a recent successful Hollywood concert version of the musical Hair, for which he was also the emcee. He is also known for providing the voice of the lead character in the cult animated series Duckman, as well as the voice of Catbert, the evil director of human resources, in the short-lived Dilbert animated series, based on the popular comic strip.
Alexander began his acting career on the New York stage. On Broadway, he appeared in Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, The Rink, Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, Accomplice, and Jerome Robbins' Broadway, for which he was awarded the 1989 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Alexander has also done a McDonalds commercial advertising the McDLT, in which he sings. He has also appeared in KFC commercials, including one with baseball superstar Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and another one opposite Trista Rehn of The Bachelorette. He no longer appears in these commercials due to the alleged cruelty to animals by KFC suppliers and slaughterhouses. He is also featured in country star Brad Paisley's music video, "Celebrity". In the summer of 2005, he appears with Lee Iacocca in ads for DaimlerChrysler vehicles, which is coincidental, considering the fact that his character on Seinfeld, George Costanza, once bought a Chrysler convertible solely on the belief that it was previously owned by Jon Voight (the actual owner was a John Voight, a New York dentist).
In the fall of 2004, he began appearing in a new sitcom on CBS, Listen Up, costarring Malcolm-Jamal Warner. His character was based on sportswriter Tony Kornheiser, but the show did not last the entire season and was not renewed for a second season. He had previously starred in the failed sitcom Bob Patterson (2001) and, years prior to Seinfeld, was featured in the 1984-1985 sitcom E/R.
In one of his few cinematic appearances, he played another memorable character (aside from Costanza) — an unlikely womanizer Mauricio — in the movie Shallow Hal (2001) against Jack Black.
Alexander also appeared with Kelsey Grammer in the musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. He played Jacob Marley to Grammer's Ebenezer Scrooge. Alexander also appeared in Rob Reiner's 1994 film North starring Elijah Wood and Bruce Willis along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, one of his Seinfeld co-stars.
Alexander appears on the Family Guy: Live in Vegas CD singing a verse in the song "All Cartoons are Fucking Dicks".
He featured in the Friends episode "The One where Rosita dies" as a suicidal supply manager named Earl. Phoebe rings him trying to sell him toner and she learns about his problem and tries to convince him not to commit suicide. This is referred to in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Alexander appears as a neurotic and critical loner called Leonard. He describes himself as free and mentions that he makes money with a job "selling toner over the phone", also in the episode, he was repeatedly harassed by a man named George; his character's name on Seinfeld.
Alexander is also the national spokesman for the Scleroderma Foundation, a leading organization dedicated to raising awareness of the disease and assisting those who are afflicted.
He will be lending his voice in the upcoming DreamWorks Animations film, Punk Farm as a potbelly pig.
He performed a mentalism and magic act at the World Famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, California on April 24-30 2006.