Award-winning actress and playwright Lisa Edelstein was born on May 21, 1966 in Boston, Massachusetts to Jewish parents. One of three children, she was raised in Wayne, New Jersey and was later educated at New York University's Tisch School of the Fine Arts. While in New York, she was named as a celebutante by Newsweek magazine, and from then went on to write, compose and star in an original musical entitled Positive Me, which she created to address the 1980s AIDS crisis. In 1990, she briefly hosted MTV's Awake on the Wild Side, after which she appeared on several comedy series such as Mad About You, Wings, The Larry Sanders Show and Seinfeld.
Edelstein's other television credits include ABC's Relativity (1996), The West Wing (1999), Ally McBeal (2000) and Felicity (2001). She also did voice work for animated programs such as King of the Hill, American Dad and Superman: The Animated Series. Moving on to film, she appeared in What Women Want, Keeping the Faith, As Good as it Gets and Daddy Day Care.
In 2004, Edelstein was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy in the highly watched FOX series, House, where she worked with British actor, Hugh Laurie. An interesting bit about Edelstein is that her mom, dad, aunt and uncle have all been extras on House.
The TV Tattler spoke with Edelstein about her celebutante days, and Edelstein said, "I learned a lot from that time about celebrity, and that it's not a goal, that it certainly wasn't a goal that I was interested in and that if I wanted to be an actress because I wanted to be a celebrity, it wasn't a good enough reason. It made me step back and reassess what I was doing. Then, it inspired me to write the musical that I did, to do something that meant something to me."
Other appearances of hers include those in Mrs. Harris, Say Uncle, Grilled, My Lunch with Larrie, and 2008’s Special Delivery.
Her last name Edelstein is German; it means 'Jewel'
If you look closely, you'll notice that Lisa's left eye is slightly higher than the right. This condition is called Hyperphoria.
Lisa authored, composed and performed the musical "Positive Me," one of the earliest AIDS-related theater productions, at Ellen Stuart's La Mama in Manhattan.
She began her professional acting career while studying theater at N.Y.U.
She enjoys writing, composing music and painting.
Played a transsexual on "Ally McBeal" (1997), a sex-obsessed artist on "Frasier" (1993), and a high-priced call girl on "The West Wing" (1999).
Is a vegan; will not eat meat or wear animal products.
Donates time to the animal sanctuary Best Friends.
Practices Ashtanga yoga six days a week.
She currently resides in Los Angeles.
Has three dogs. Their names are Sandwich, Wolf-E. and Bumpa. She also has one cat "Bug"
Daughter of Alvin Edelstein and Bonnie Edelstein.
Speaks Spanish.
Her father, Alvin Edelstein, was a pediatrician.
My dogs remind me that the simple pleasures in life are enough to make a day great
The hardest part about being vegan is shoes. I mean really that's the only difficult part, finding shoes that don't have leather on them
I think it's really important for celebrities to use their power of money and fame to get their voices out there. It's funny to me that we're expected to keep quiet just because of who we are. Why do I lose my right to speak my mind because I'm famous? People criticize Michael Moore, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon for standing up for what they believe in, but that's what they do. They never pretended to be anyone else.