Lisa Kudrow (born July 30, 1963) is an American actress, best known for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the popular television sitcom Friends. Throughout her career she has received many accolades for her work in film and television including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Biography

Lisa was born in Encino, California, the daughter of Nedra S (née Stern), a travel agent, and Dr Lee N Lisa (born 1933), a headache specialist and physician. Lisa Kudrow was raised in a family and has an older sister, Helene Marla (born 1960), and an older brother, neurologist David B. Lisa (born 1957). She is the niece of composer/conductor Harold Farberman. She took guitar lessons as a child and is left-handed.

After attending Portola Middle School in Tarzana, California, she graduated from Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California. She received her B.S. in Biology from Vassar College, intending to follow in her father's footsteps and research headaches. Lisa worked on her father's staff for eight years while breaking into acting, earning a research credit on his study on the comparative likelihood of left-handed individuals developing cluster headaches.

At the urging of her brother's childhood friend, comedian Jon Lovitz, Lisa began her comedic career as a member of The Groundlings, joining the ranks of those such as Will Ferrell and Janeane Garofalo. Briefly, Lisa joined with Conan O'Brien and director Tim Hillman in the short-lived improv troupe Unexpected Company. Lisa Kudrow was also the only regular female member of the Transformers Comedy Troupe.

Lisa Kudrow played a role in an episode of the NBC sitcom Cheers. She tried out for Saturday Night Live in 1990, but the show chose Julia Sweeney instead. Lisa Kudrow had a recurring role as Kathy Fleisher in three episodes of season one of the Bob Newhart sitcom Bob (CBS, 1992-1993). Prior to Friends, she appeared in at least two produced network pilots: NBC's Just Temporary (also known as Temporarily Yours) in 1989, playing Nicole; and CBS' Close Encounters (also known as Matchmaker) in 1990, playing a Valley girl.

Lisa was hired to play the role of Roz Doyle in Frasier, but the part was re-cast with Peri Gilpin during the filming of the pilot episode. Lisa said in 2000 that when rehearsals started, "I knew it wasn't working. I could feel it all slipping away, and I was panicking, which only made things worse". However, one of the people working on Frasier also worked on Friends and suggested Lisa audition for the show. Lisa Kudrow's first recurring television role was Ursula Buffay, the eccentric waitress on the NBC sitcom Mad About You. Lisa would reprise the character on the NBC sitcom Friends, in which Lisa co-starred as massage therapist Phoebe Buffay, Ursula's twin sister. As Lisa explained in 2009, "I did Mad About You first, and then it was pilot season, and I auditioned for this pilot that turned out to be Friends. And once I got that, the time slot we got was right after Mad About You, so the creative folk thought, 'Well, we can't just pretend like it's not her'".

For Lisa Kudrow's ensemble starring role as Phoebe on Friends (NBC, 1994 - 2004) Lisa would win the 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series; she was the first Friends cast member to win an Emmy, as well as the most frequently nominated of the cast, receiving six nominations. The program was a long-running hit, and Lisa and her fellow cast-members, gained wide renown among television viewers. According to the Guinness Book of World Records (2005), Lisa and co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox became the highest paid TV actresses of all time, earning $1 million per episode for the ninth and tenth season of Friends.

Lisa Kudrow's film credits include comedic roles in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Hanging Up, Marci X, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That. However, Lisa has also starred in dramatic roles including the biographical Wonderland about the late porn star John Holmes. She has garnered critical acclaim in dramatic roles for writer-director Don Roos in the films The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings. In 2008, she commenced filming on Hotel for Dogs alongside Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin.

Lisa Kudrow has been a vocal performer on episodes of animated television series, including as Aphrodite on Hercules: The Animated Series, and as Springfield Elementary School student Alexandra Whitney on The Simpsons. She was the voice of the female grizzly bear Ava in the live action movie Dr. Dolittle 2.

After Friends, Lisa starred as protagonist Valerie Cherish on the single-season HBO series The Comeback (premiered June 5, 2005), about a has-been sitcom star trying for a comeback. She also served as co-creator, writer, and executive producer. Lisa received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on The Comeback, making her the first Friends cast member to receive a major award nomination since Friends ended. She has also appeared, alongside her niece, in a television commercial for Nintendo's Personal Trainer: Cooking, as well as in the Nintendo DS commercial for Professor Layton and the Curious Village with Lynn Brown Kogen. She and Lisa are friends (Lisa was in Lynn's wedding) and who is married to Jay Kogen (writer/producer for Frasier, Tracey Ullman, Simpsons).

Her latest project is as the executive producer for the American version of the hit UK television series Who Do You Think You Are? for NBC, in which celebrities trace their family trees. The release date is April 20th 2009, and will include herself, Susan Sarandon and Sarah Jessica Parker as well as others.

Lisa had a relationship with Conan O'Brien until he moved to New York to host his talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien beginning in 1993. On May 27, 1995, Lisa became the first "Friend" to marry when she wed Michel Stern, a French advertising executive. They have one son, Julian Murray (born May 7, 1998), and live near Beverly Hills, California. Kudrow's pregnancy was written into Friends with her character Phoebe having triplets as a surrogate parent for her brother and his wife because they were not able to have children.

Lisa is bilingual, speaking English and French fluently. This was used in an episode of Friends in which Phoebe attempted to teach Joey (Matt LeBlanc) to speak French for an audition, and on other occasions.

This Lisa Kudrow Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Chuck Ayoub