Should you watch the pilot for “Seinfeld,” you may discover one obtrusive omission. Elaine Benes, performed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, just isn’t in it. The pilot opens with Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) and George (Jason Alexander), not on the acquainted Monk’s Café however moderately at Pete’s Luncheon. After an earnest dialog between the 2 in regards to the placement of buttons on males’s shirts, we meet Claire the Waitress. She’s a sarcastic server who matches proper in with the forged. Claire is performed by veteran movie and TV character actor Lee Garlington.

In 2010, Jason Alexander advised Kevin Pollak how Elaine Benes ended up changing Claire the Waitress as an everyday character on the present. Throughout an look on “Kevin Pollak’s Chat Present,” Alexander stated:

“There was no Elaine within the pilot. It was Kramer, George, Jerry, and a waitress. A waitress on the espresso store. A really effective actress who made the vital error of suggesting to Larry [David] that she, she’d appeared on the scenes in a single day and made a couple of tweaks that she wished to share with him … A number of concepts, a couple of concepts. Within the spirit of group and collaboration.”

Practically a yr later, when the present’s second episode aired as a part of a four-episode NBC late-season alternative, Claire was gone, changed with Jerry’s ex-girlfriend-turned-friend, Elaine Benes.

So, what occurred to Claire, and what did it imply for “Seinfeld?”