One of the great mysteries of Seinfeld is why exactly George’s fiance Susan was killed off. The rumor goes that Jason Alexander didn’t like working with the actress who played the part, Heidi Swanberg, so after 28 episodes, she died by licking a cheap stamp. Now, Alexander has finally cleared up what happened.
Howard Stern brought it up while Alexander was on his show Wednesday. Alexander explained that even though she was a wonderful woman, he “couldn’t figure out how to play off of her.”
After Stern said that he was just being kind, Alexander continued.
“No, her instincts for doing a scene - where the comedy was - and mine were always misfiring. And she would do something and I would say, ‘Oh, OK, I see what she’s going to do and I’m going to adjust to her.’ And I would adjust and it would just change,” Alexander said.
Alexander later called it “such a disaster” after he recalled how Larry David called him up to tell him that George was going to get engaged. “Great. Who’s playing George?” Alexander recalled telling the show’s co-creator.
The actor recalled telling the other members of the cast - Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards and Julia Louis-Dreyfus - after every episode that it was too difficult to work with Swanberg. They didn’t see the problem, since they didn’t have many scenes with her. but when Seinfeld and Louis-Dreyfus finally had to play a scene with her, they told him it was “f**king impossible.” Alexander added that it was Louis-Dreyfus’ idea to kill Susan and David liked that.
...And the rest is TV history.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com