Michael Richards

Michael Richards spent nine seasons playing wacky neighbor Cosmo Kramer on the sitcom Seinfeld. Richards worked the clubs of L.A. as a stand-up comedian before landing a job on ABC's late night comedy show Fridays (1980-82). He hit the jackpot seven years later when he began playing Kramer, the lanky, eccentric, wild-haired Manhattan neighbor of Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld. The show aired from 1989-1998; Richards' extreme physical comedy was a potent counterweight to the general talkiness of show, and the role made him a star. His film credits include UHF (1993, with Weird Al Yankovic), Coneheads (1993, with Dan Aykroyd), and Unstrung Heroes (1995, directed by Diane Keaton).

Extra credit: Richards made news in November of 2006 when he spewed racial epithets at hecklers during a comedy club appearance at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood; he apologized on the David Letterman show a few days later... Richards is six feet, two and one-half inches tall, according to a 1993 article in Entertainment Weekly... Richards's co-stars on Seinfeld were Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes and Jason Alexander as George Costanza... Some sources list 1948 as Richards's birth year. Who2 bases its 1949 date on Kathleen Tracy's book Jerry Seinfeld: The Whole Domain (1998, Birch Lane Press, p. 67).