\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no growing and sharing in comedy,\u201d Essman said. \u201cAnd there shouldn\u2019t be. The comedy is that you keep making the same mistake over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t a series regular until about the eighth season, but the show changed her life, giving her more visibility as a performer, and a financial bedrock. \u201cI look around my house and I say, \u2018this is the house that Larry built,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Though \u201cCurb\u201d shoots in Los Angeles, Essman has never lived there. She splits her time between a new two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side where she eventually hopes to retire, and a home upstate that her husband, a former contractor, fixed up \u2014 to the amazement of David, who is not, let\u2019s say, a D.I.Y.-er. She married for the first time at age 53, and has four stepchildren, one grandchild, and a deaf, one-eyed Shih Tzu. \u201cI call him Helen Keller,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s old. He\u2019s cute. I\u2019ll get another one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone swears she is not much like her \u201cCurb\u201d character. \u201cNot only is she is one of the sweetest people I\u2019ve ever met in the business, she\u2019s one of the smartest,\u201d Lewis said. David added that, in their time working together, \u201cShe\u2019s become one of my closest friends. Brilliant and profound when it comes to life issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Essman has been besties with Joy Behar, the comedian, writer and TV host, for 40 years; both suffered from stage fright and still navigated the territorial, male-dominated stand-up scene of the \u201980s and \u201990s. They\u2019ve had therapy and now help friends work out their issues in a psychodrama group<\/a> that Behar runs, acting out the bad boss or the undermining sibling. \u201cShe\u2019s great at it, like a duck to water,\u201d Behar said.<\/p>\n Over lunch, where Essman was dressed tastefully in a fuchsia sweater, beaded necklace and jeans, she snapped at no one, asked thoughtful questions and cooed at a baby across the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n