Elaine Benes

Lore & Background

Elaine first appears in "The Stake Out", but in production order she appears in a final scene eating M&Ms in "Male Unbonding". NBC executives felt the show was too male-centric, and demanded that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David add a woman to the cast as a condition for commissioning the show. Elaine does not appear in "The Trip" because Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on maternity leave, and therefore appears in fewer episodes than George and Jerry. Unlike her three close friends, Elaine is not a native of New York City, having grown up in the affluent Baltimore suburb of Towson, and is shown to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. Her undergraduate education is never specified in the show. In "The Dog", she tells George she moved to New York, though the year is never mentioned. She started dating Jerry later that year.

In Their Own Story

During Seasons 2 to 5, Elaine works at Pendant Publishing under her boss Mr. Lippman, where she served as a copy editor. She loses her job at the end of Season 5 when the company goes bankrupt and a misunderstanding resulting from her penchant for chewy, speech-impairing Jujyfruit candies thwarts a merger that might have saved the company ("The Opposite"). Elaine then becomes a personal assistant to the eccentric, demanding Justin Pitt, starting in "The Chaperone", but later is fired when Mr. Pitt thinks she and Jerry are conspiring to kill him in "The Diplomat's Club". After meeting J. Peterman on the street in "The Understudy" in season 6, she becomes an editor at his J. Peterman Catalog, where she remains employed for the rest of the series. Starting in "The Foundation", she takes charge of the catalog when Peterman suffers a nervous breakdown and flees to Burma. Once Peterman returns in "The Money" she is demoted back to her former position. Peterman also fires her twice: first when her penchant for poppy seed muffins causes her to fail a drug test in "The Shower Head" and later in "The English Patient" when she expresses her hatred for the movie The English Patient. She is able to recover her job by agreeing to live temporarily in a remote cave in the desert of Tunisia.

Reader's Guide

Elaine's religious beliefs are never fully confirmed, and she appears to have little interest in religion. She expresses shock when Puddy is revealed as a devout Christian. She views saying "God bless you" as a "silly superstition" in "The Good Samaritan." It is strongly suggested in the show that Elaine is Catholic when she is seen making the sign of the cross before entering Jerry's apartment to retrieve a manuscript while the apartment is being fumigated in "The Doodle", and crosses herself again in "The Betrayal" after turning her back on a Hindu altar. In "The Postponement" and "The Fatigues", Elaine states that she is not Jewish. Elaine's father, a gruff novelist named Alton Benes (Lawrence Tierney), was featured in "The Jacket". In "The Wait Out", Elaine reveals to David Lookner that Alton left her and the rest of her family when she was nine years old. Elaine is the only main character in the series whose mother never makes an appearance. Elaine has a sister, Gail, and a nephew. Her sister is first referenced in "The Phone Message" and specifically mentioned by name in "The Pick". In "The Airport", it is revealed that Gail lives in St. Louis. Her nephew was ten years old in "The Pick." Elaine has a cousin, Holly, who appears in "The Wink", where reference is made to Elaine's grandmother Mema, from whom Holly inherited a set of cloth napkins. In "The Stock Tip", Elaine mentions she has an Uncle Pete. In "The Secret Code", she mentions an uncle who worked in the Texas School Book Depository with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Did You Know?

• Elaine is absent from the pilot episode; the female role was originally supposed to be Claire, the waitress at Pete's Luncheonette played by Lee Garlington.
• In "The Sponge", Elaine coins the word "spongeworthy" debating her then-boyfriend's prospects of intimacy at the expense of her inventory of discontinued contraceptive sponges.
• Elaine's performance at a J. Peterman company party in "The Little Kicks" is described by George as "a full-bodied dry heave set to music."
• Elaine's favorite film is never stated in the series.