Kramer’s first appearances in Seinfeld They are like the character himself: chaotic, inexplicable, meaningless. Then they continue to be, but as the seasons of the series progress, that initial confusion for the protagonist’s histrionic neighbor transforms into admiration and appreciation for him and for Michael Richards, the actor with the soul of clown who plays him, who won the hearts of viewers with his peculiar humor. This 180-episode sitcom – Richards appears in 178 of them – broadcast between 1989 and 1998, established the Californian performer, now 74, as one of the great comedians of the time. In the 2000s he was still in his prime, but suddenly he disappeared. The reason? Some racist insults that he launched in 2006 during a Show and that they didn’t please anyone.
“I immediately regretted it the moment I said it on stage,” he confessed to People 18 years later. Richards also now admits that he doesn’t expect the world to forgive and forget: “I’m not looking for a comeback.” Even so, on April 30, the followers of Seinfeld They were surprised to see him again on the red carpet at the premiere of Unsweetened, the new film by Jerry Seinfeld, his partner in the series with Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. His timid return to the public eye is due to the release of his memoirs, Entrances and Exits [Entradas y salidas]which will go on sale next June 4 in the United States and in which he writes about his childhood, his rise to fame in Seinfeld and yes, about the night at a Laugh Factory [una cadena de clubes de comedia en los Estados Unidos] that turned his career upside down.
The incident in question took place at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, when Richards was interrupted by several members of the audience who were on the balcony during his performance. As he now describes in his book, after hearing people speak from that area and ordering them to “shut up,” one of those present shouted something at him that upset him: “You’re not funny. “We don’t think you’re very funny!” The actor confesses to having taken the comment “quite badly, like a solid blow below the belt.” And in response, he offered a shower of racist insults that were also recorded by the public. Insults such as: “50 years ago we would have you hanging upside down with a fork in your ass,” accompanied by derogatory words towards black people.
Richards says he has spent the last 17 years in “deep analysis.” “It was time to find out where all the anger was coming from,” she commented in her interview with People. Part of it, he says, was due to his own insecurities and feelings of being unloved (he was raised by a single mother who had initially wanted to have an abortion, but couldn’t because it was illegal and dangerous at the time). However, he has no valid excuse for that night in 2006 when he said what he said. “I am not racist. I have nothing against black people. The man who told me he wasn’t funny had just said what he had been telling myself for a while. I felt belittled. I wanted to finish him off,” he admits. “My anger was everywhere and he came hard and fast. Anger is a great force. But it happened. Instead of running away from it, I dove into the deep end and tried to learn from it. It hasn’t been easy,” he continues. And he adds: “The crisis managers wanted me to do damage control. But as far as I was concerned, the damage was within me.”
The actor, who after playing Kramer has barely returned to fiction other than in a few minor roles, recognizes that despite his great success in the nineties he could not “connect with the joy of being an artist.” “He was a good character actor, but I felt comfortable being the character, not being me,” he confesses. That insecurity also led him to reject good opportunities: “I said no to the offer of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I didn’t feel worthy. I said no to presenting Saturday night Live twice because I didn’t feel good enough. I was never really satisfied with my performance in Seinfeld. Fame magnified my insecurities.”
With his new memoir, he not only opens up about that incident that sank his career almost two decades ago, he also looks back on his unconventional upbringing by his mother, his time in the military, his rise to fame after becoming Cosmo Kramer and his difficulty being a celebrity. It is a summary of the interpersonal work that he has done and of his life during the last 17 years, in which he has dedicated himself mainly to reading and studying religion and philosophy. “I am learning and healing. Healing and learning,” he tells the American media about his life now, as husband of actress Beth Skipp and father of his son Antonio. “But life always has ups and downs. I continue to work through the day and the night, the light and the darkness that I am.”
