After Dinner Speakers: Lisa Kudrow, The Beastie Boys, James Mapes

Actor. Born July 30, 1963 in Encino, California. Kudrow began her studies at Vassar College in Biology, but she became interested in acting, and soon after she began auditioning, she became a member of the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improvisational comedy group. She landed a range of small parts in television, but the first in which she became known for was her role as Ursula in the Helen Hunt-Paul Reiser sitcom Mad About You (1992). She went on to even greater success as Phoebe Buffay in the immensely popular television series Friends. In 2000, after a widely publicized battle with NBC, Kudrow and costars Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer made headlines when they negotiated a salary of $750,000 per episode, becoming the highest paid television stars in history. Some of her roles in feature films include Mother (1996); Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), in which she costarred with Mina Sorvino; The Opposite of Sex (1998); and Hanging Up (2000), with Walter Matthau and Meg Ryan. Kudrow married advertising executive Michael Stern in 1995. Together they have a son, Julian Murray.