Part of Seinfeld featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Michael Richards, Wayne Knight, and Larry David.
Rise to Fame
Elaine Benes wasn't supposed to exist. NBC executives watched the pilot of Seinfeld and told Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld to add a woman because the show was too male-centric. Louis-Dreyfus, who had just come off three largely unremarkable years on SNL, turned an afterthought character into the sharpest person in any room she entered. Her physical comedy was deranged in the best way. The Emmy win in 1996 confirmed what the audience already knew: Elaine was carrying more of Seinfeld than the credits suggested.
In the Spotlight
She won her sixth consecutive Emmy for Veep on September 17, 2017. The next day she learned she had breast cancer. She posted the diagnosis publicly on Twitter, underwent a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemotherapy, and was in remission within a year. That arc would break most careers. Hers picked up where it left off. She collected eight acting Emmys in total, tying Cloris Leachman's record, and is now in the MCU as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in Thunderbolts*. She's the rare sitcom actress who aged into authority instead of irrelevance.
Side Notes
Her last name isn't a stage name. Her father, Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, chaired the Louis Dreyfus Group, a French agricultural commodities empire his family built worth billions. She had access to that money and chose to join Second City and grind through SNL instead. Growing up internationally was unavoidable: her stepfather ran Project HOPE and relocated the family to Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia. She's been married to her Northwestern University college sweetheart Brad Hall since 1987, which is either sweet or suspicious depending on your priors.