Jerry's Mom on Seinfeld Was the Great Lost Love of James Dean's Life

Doomed Hollywood heartthrob James Dean's first love was iconic TV mom Liz Sheridan, Jerry's mother on Seinfeld. Today, Sheridan is synonymous with the role of Helen Seinfeld, but her legacy includes decades of work before and after the groundbreaking '90s sitcom, and her personal life was defined by an early, short-lived romance with Dean, the definition of a tragic figure.

Liz Sheridan and James Dean dated in their early 20s, before Dean’s big break drove a wedge between them.

Dean’s newfound fame brought him to California, where he infamously died in a car crash before the age of 25. Among the many “What if?” questions left by Dean’s early demise was his unfinished love story with Sheridan.

Liz Sheridan, Who Played Jerry's Mom On Seinfeld, Dated James Dean Before He Became A Hollywood Legend

Dean's Death Cut Short A Promising Fulm Career, And A Youthful Romance

James Dean was just 24-years-old when he died in 1955. He'd been acting on screen for just four years, a remarkably brief span considering his outsized impact on mid-20th-century popular culture. Hollywood lost a rising star, and a generational talent. For Liz Sheridan, 26 at the time, the tragedy was deeply personal.

Sheridan was a dancer at the time, who had ditched New York City after breaking up with Dean. It would be another 35 years before she took the role that immortalized her, Helen Seinfeld, and still two decades before she even pursued an on-screen acting career. What might have been different if James Dean had lived?

Liz Sheridan wrote a book about her romance with Dean, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean: A Love Story, in which she described one last final, fateful encounter with the ill-fated actor, after their break-up, shortly before his death. Though she might have been mythologizing, Sheridan implied that Dean was still in love with her.

Liz Sheridan's Love Affair With James Dean Begs The Question, How Would Hollywood Have Changed If He Lived?

Would Sheridan Still Have Played Helen On Seinfeld?

Even if James Dean had lived beyond his early 20s, there's no way of saying if he might have ever gotten back together with Liz Sheridan. Let's say, for a moment, that they did reunite, though. Would she have gotten her start in Hollywood early? Would they have acted together? Might Sheridan have been a bigger star?

Could those ripple effects have led to a world where Liz Sheridan didn't play Jerry's mom on Seinfeld? How would she be remembered today, in that case? It's a fascinating Hollywood counterfactual to consider. It's just one of many ways that James Dean's untimely, but legendary death changed Hollywood history.

The story of Sheridan and Dean's romance is also a reminder that every piece of Hollywood trivia, or factoid, was once the best, or worst, part of some person's life. That every legend, from cinema's original arch-rebel to Jerry's mom on '90s juggernaut sitcom Seinfeld, was once a person who felt things, and loved, and like Liz Sheridan, lost.

Release Date 1989 - 1998

Directors David Steinberg, David Owen Trainor, Art Wolff, Jason Alexander

Writers Darin Henry, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Bill Masters, Bruce Kirschbaum, Steve O'Donnell, Tom Leopold, Don McEnery, Greg Daniels, Jon Hayman, Kit Boss, Lawrence H. Levy, Matt Goldman, Matt Selman, Billy Kimball, Fred Stoller, Charlie Rubin, Steve Lookner, Steve Skrovan

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  Jason Alexander

  George Costanza