Laraine Newman

Newman took an interest at improv at Beverly Hills High School. After graduating in 1970, she studied mime with Marcel Marceau for a year in Paris. She then moved to Los Angeles and became a founding member of comedy improvisational group The Groundlings. She was first hired by Lorne Michaels for a Lily Tomlin TV special in 1974. The next year Newman became one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live, working there from 1975 to 1980 and creating characters like Connie Conehead, proto-Valley girl Sherry, and Christie Christina. In 2017, she and the rest of the original cast members of SNL were among the honorees of the Television Academy Hall of Fame.


She has appeared in movies like Stardust Memories, Problem Child 2, Coneheads, and The Flintstones. She is also a voice actor with appearances in both TV shows and movies, including many Pixar films like Finding Nemo, WALL-E, Up, and Inside Out. In 2021 her memoir May You Live in Interesting Times was released on Audible.


She is the younger sister of writer and musician Tracy Newman and the mother of actress and comedian Hannah Einbinder, and actor Spike Einbinder.

Personal life[edit]

Newman was born on March 2, 1952,^[2][3] in Los Angeles, California,^[4] the granddaughter of a cattle rancher from Arizona. Her family is Jewish.^[5] She is the youngest of four children and has a twin brother Paul. Her sister, Tracy Newman, is an Emmy Award–winning television writer. Newman attended Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California and graduated from there in 1970. Newman married actor-writer-director Chad Einbinder in 1991; their marriage ended after 25 years. Newman and Einbinder have two children, Spike^[6] and Hannah, who are both actors and comedians.^[7]


The song "Never Let Her Slip Away," written and recorded by Andrew Gold, was about Newman. The two were a couple at the time. The song hit #5 on the UK charts in 1978.^[8]

Early life and career[edit]

Newman took her first improvisational theatre classes when she was 15. ^[9] After finishing high school she auditioned for four acting schools in England including the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Bristol Old Vic. She was not accepted after the second round of auditions for all four schools, so she went to Paris to study mime with Marcel Marceau for a year.^[10]


By the age of 19, Newman returned to the United States, and moved to Los Angeles, where she did a brief stint at a secretarial school. Committed to continue performing, she was a founding member of the pioneering comedy improvisational group The Groundlings.^[11] At the same time, Newman was working for a booking agent who worked with rock bands, typing up contracts.^[12]


Newman cites Eve Arden, Madeline Kahn and Richard Pryor as her first major influences, saying "They led me into my life of comedy, they led me into understanding 'The Art of Play.'"^[12]