Born On This Day- July 27th... Carol Leifer

After graduating from Binghampton University with a degree in Theatre, Carol Leifer started in stand-up after accompanying her then boyfriend Paul Reiser to his gig at Catch A Raising Star. She enjoyed a successful career doing stand-up & appeared on Late Night with David Letterman more more that 25 times. She moved to writing & has won Emmys for her work on The Larry Sanders Show, SNL, Rules of Engagement (also executive producer), & most famously- Seinfeld (she has been dubbed- the real Elaine). She once opened for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas.

In September 2007, Leifer won an auction for the handwritten notes used by Michael Vick during his apology for his role in dogfighting.

On her 40th birthday, Leifer had a revelation: "I suddenly had this really mad desire to have an affair with a woman, I was divorced. I was childless. I figured there's got to be one more way to really tick off my mom. I told Lori that I kind of had this crush on her, & she was, like: 'No way. I'm not going to be a science experiment for some straight girl!'"

"I used my patented line that I've used easily for the last 20 years—'Well, what would it hurt if we just made out?' Heard the song lyric- 'I kissed a girl & I liked it'? Well, I kissed a girl & my head spun around."

“When I first started talking about being gay onstage I felt it wasn't working. The audience was like, You seem straight & now you're talking about being gay, what? I just kind of gave it up. But now I think I wasn't completely owning it, because it works completely now. I talk about having been married, and then I met this woman & my life spun around & we've been together for almost 14 years. & the audience always still applauds when I say how long we've been together, which is pretty amazing for a comedy club. I own it so much now. It wasn't the audience. It was me.”

Leifer currently is a staff writer on Modern Family & is nominated for an Emmy this year. She lives in Santa Monica with her longtime partner- real estate developer Lori Wolf, Chihuahuas- Cagney & Mini Mo & their son. Love her.