The women of Jerry, Part One

Ten years ago, when I had my own blog (RIP Delenda Est Carthago, 2005-2009), I did a whole thing on the women Jerry Seinfeld dated during the entire course of his series’ run. I thought I’d revisit those posts today, because I tried to rank the girlfriends based on how famous they were in 2007. Now it’s 2017, and I’m curious about their fame these days. Many of them never became famous, and some have slipped out of fame since 2007, but I had fun doing this the first time around, and I’m sure I’ll have fun with this. First up: the pilot and Season One!

I should note that I used the Seinfeld episode guide and, of course, the Internet Movie Database. Both are excellent resources for this kind of thing. And if I get some things wrong, that’s why we have commenters! Of course, the “Fame Rating” is completely subjective, but that’s also something we can argue about. So let’s get to it! (Note: this is basically cut and pasted from my original posts, except that I will be changing the “Fame Rating” based on the intervening 10 years.)

Pilot, “Good News, Bad News” (aired 5 July 1989). Our first Seinfeld lady is Pamela Brüll. Who? She played Laura, who flies into New York and asks to stay with Jerry. He’s not sure if she wants to take it up a notch, and then he learns that she’s engaged, solving that problem. This is a kind of lame episode, giving no indication of the greatness to come, and Ms. Brüll is part of that problem. She’s not unattractive, but she’s not terribly glamorous or memorable either. She hadn’t really done anything noteworthy before she appeared on Seinfeld, and she hasn’t done anything since. Her last appearance on the IMDb page is in 1997. Fare thee well, Ms. Brüll!

I give her a Fame Rating of 1 out of 10, because even though she’s in the pilot episode of one of the great sitcoms ever (albeit a poor example of it), that’s probably her only claim to fame. I also want to note the age difference between Jerry and the women he dates, and Ms. Brüll was 35 when the episode aired. Jerry was also 35 – he’s actually about 9 months younger than she is. That would not be consistent throughout the sitcom’s life.

Season One:

Episode Two, “The Stake-Out” (aired 31 May 1990). In this episode, Jerry meets a woman whose name he doesn’t know, so he stakes out her building. This is the first reference that George makes to Art Vandelay, who will become his go-to fake name. The woman is named Vanessa, and she was played by Lynn Clark. She was an attractive redhead who showed up again in the fourth (of the season; the fifth overall) episode (which is why it’s listed right after this one instead of in its proper place.)

Episode Five, “The Stock Tip” (aired 21 June 1990). Lynn Clark returns, but her weekend trip to Vermont with Jerry dooms the relationship, especially because he’s fretting about his stock going bad. And it’s raining. So she was gone. She does hold the distinction of being one of the very few repeat girlfriends (I can think of one other off the top of my head, but I’m not sure if that’s the only other one), so she has that going for her. She also never went on to much fame. The highlight of her career after Seinfeld was probably an appearance on Friends, or possibly her appearance on Melrose Place. She gets a Fame Rating of 2 out of 10, because she did guest star on three of the shows that captured the 1990s zeitgeist – Seinfeld, Friends, and Melrose Place. But there’s not much else for her. The only birth information I have on her is the year, 1964, so she was 25/26 when she appeared on Seinfeld, while Jerry had recently turned 36.

Episode Three, “The Robbery” (aired 7 June 1990). No girlfriend. This is the episode when George and Jerry both want the same great apartment and neither end up taking it.

Episode Four, “Male Unbonding” (aired 14 June 1990). No girlfriend. In this episode Jerry tries to “break up” with his childhood friend, Joel, played to obnoxious excellence by Kevin Dunn.

Yes, Season One of Seinfeld lasted only four episodes, airing in the summer a year after the pilot (which didn’t have Elaine in it, famously). If it premiered today, it would probably have been cancelled after that one season, but things were a bit different back then, so it got more chances and became the classic we know. Next time I’ll jump into Season Two!