Jerry Seinfeld

Jerry Seinfeld was already a success as a stand-up comedian when he and Larry David created the hit TV sitcom Seinfeld in 1990. Seinfeld played a fictional version of himself: a single standup comic in New York, surrounded by offbeat friends and coping with the trivialities of modern life. (The show co-starred Michael Richards as Kramer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine, and Jason Alexander as George Costanza.) The show became a huge hit for NBC and for Seinfeld, who ended the show in 1998 while it was still earning some of TV's best ratings and reviews. Seinfeld wrote the comedy book Seinlanguage in 1993 and the picture book Halloween in 2002. He appeared in Comedian, a documentary about stand-up comedy, in 2002. Bee Movie, an animated feature he wrote, produced, and starred in, was released in 2007.

Extra credit: Seinfeld began dating 18-year-old Shoshanna Lonstein in 1993, making him a popular topic for tabloid newspapers. He married the former Jessica Sklar in 1999. They have three children: Sascha (b. 2000), Julian (b. 2003) and Shepherd (b. 2005).