Michael Richards

Kramer wasn't written, he was developed. Michael Richards built the character through years of physical comedy in Los Angeles clubs, doing pratfalls and facial contortions that other comics wouldn't attempt. When Seinfeld launched in 1989, he turned a neighbor-across-the-hall into the show's defining force. While Jerry played it straight and Larry David supplied the neurosis, Richards gave Kramer a physical vocabulary no sitcom had seen before. Nine seasons, three Emmy wins, and the character became so embedded in pop culture that Richards himself has spent decades trying to step out from behind it.

In November 2006, Richards stood on a stage at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles and hurled racial slurs at Black hecklers in a meltdown caught on camera. The video spread instantly. He appeared on Late Show a few days later to apologize, with Jerry Seinfeld in the studio beside David Letterman for moral support. The career stopped there. He has said he 'canceled himself.' In 2024, he published a memoir and did the interview rounds insisting he isn't racist and isn't looking for a comeback. The general response was skeptical.

Before Seinfeld, Richards served in the Army, where he ended up doing entertainment work on top of his medic duties, which is the kind of detail that sounds invented but isn't. He grew up believing his father died when he was two, and his 2024 memoir revealed he was conceived after his mother was assaulted by a stranger. His first solo vehicle after Seinfeld, The Michael Richards Show in 2000, ran only eight episodes before NBC pulled it. He reportedly still earns millions annually from Seinfeld royalties, which makes two decades of public absence feel more like a choice than a consequence.