HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm will not be returning until 2008, so Emmy-nominated Cheryl Hines is spending her time executive producing Oxygen's Campus Ladies, winning Texas Hold 'Em pots of $50,000 and more on ESPN's Celeb Poker Showdown, spending time with her daughter (who turns three in March), and writing a TV pilot about the life of a celebrity's personal assistant in Hollywood.
Cheryl's first job in Los Angeles after graduating from college (Central Florida University after stops at West Virginia and beauty school) was as personal assistant to director and actor Rob Reiner (Meathead on All in the Family). "I was doing ridiculous things, like driving 45 miles to drop off melon balls and celery sticks for his diet. After that, you don't question anything. There's definitely enough material there for a sitcom."
Cheryl is also spending time in New York laying the foundation for future stage acting opportunities. "My ambition is to do theater in New York," Cheryl told me over Lunch at Michael's. "I'd love to do A Streetcar Named Desire. It would be a fabulous challenge and enriching in ways I can't even imagine."
Cheryl's introduction to acting came in high school after she was bounced from the high school cheerleading squad and joined the drama club. "I got bad grades for Citizenship because I talked and laughed in class, and they suspended me from the team. All I remember is the girls fighting about bobby socks vs. knee socks, and I figured there was a better way to spend my time."
As she looked around the crowded front room at Michael's Restaurant in New York, Cheryl recalled spending most of her high school years "having fun and laughing. I thought everything was funny, and I still do. It sometimes gets me in trouble." Her role as Larry David's wife on Curb… is perfectly suited to her wry, fun-loving, laugh-at-the-world attitude, but her success could not have been forecast from her early struggles.
Cheryl was bartending at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles and struck up a conversation with the late comedian Phil Hartman's sister. "My dream was to be on Saturday Night Live and I asked her how I could get from Tallahassee to SNL. She was like an angel who came to me and told me to try out for The Groundlings," the famed L.A. improv performance group of which Hartman had been a member. "Thousands of students and aspiring comedians try out and only three are chosen. The full company votes at every cut and you can be out at every level. I was used to rejection. Most of this business is about rejection. But it's tough when any one person can reject you. I had tried out four times for The Swamp Thing TV series and after the third turn-down I was devastated. My sister told me to reevaluate my life and get out if I couldn't deal better with rejection. When I finally gave up hope, I got a role."
While not exactly a break, The Swamp Thing was a beginning and being accepted as a member of The Groundlings was a career-making break that not only led to an introduction to Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David when he was casting the role of his wife, but she also attracted the attention of Groundlings' manager (and now Chairman) Paul Young, president of Principato-Young Management, who Cheryl married.
"I never thought I'd get married. I was more interested in my career and never found marriage that appealing. It's tragic to look across the table at someone and think, 'Oh dear Lord, how much longer?' I realized you have to find the right person and I did."
Cheryl's parents are divorced and she looks back at their relationship as a life-lesson and with a sense of humor. "I remember my friends and I laughing hysterically because we'd walk into my house and know when my dad was home because his feet smelled. I thought it was disgusting but my Mom thought it was okay. I thought, when did it like get to the point where it's okay? When did my Mom give up trying to change him? They broke up when I was 15. Maybe it was the feet!"
When she was nominated for an EMMY, her parents, three brothers and sisters and several high school friends joined her on the Red Carpet. Cheryl, who is one of the most personable and friendly actresses in Hollywood, stays close with high school friends like "professional extra" Paul Beckett, who offered Cheryl his couch when she moved to L.A. without a job and he remains her best friend.
As a member of The Groundlings, she performed with Campus Ladies creators Christen Sussin and Carrie Aizley, who were working with Paul Young to develop the sitcom. Cheryl knew Oxygen was looking for smart, funny female-centric comedies and she called chairman Gerry Laybourne, whom she had met once, and convinced her to take a look. "It didn't take much convincing. Oxygen loved it and they've been great to work with."
"When I'm on the set of Campus Ladies, we all laugh a lot and mostly at ourselves," Cheryl smiles. "But on Curb Your Enthusiasm I do everything I can not to laugh. I'm really acting when I disapprove of Larry. I need to put myself on a different plane to keep from breaking up all the time." As a comedian and now executive producer, Cheryl has elevated herself to a plane most improv actors only dream about. It seems unlikely that a sitcom comedian could move to serious Broadway drama, but the girl from Tallahassee and Swamp Thing seems destined to laugh her way to the top.
To contact Cheryl Hines email contact@mediavillage.com.
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