- "You're fired, Elaine. Goodbye."
- ―Justin Pitt
Justin Pitt, usually referred to as Mr. Pitt, was an executive at the publishing company Doubleday. Sometime after Pendant Publishing went out of business, he met and hired Elaine Benes to be his assistant solely because she reminded him of Jackie Onassis when they first met. Mr. Pitt, however, was obsessive-compulsive, frequently having Elaine do trivial tasks for him, such as spending hours finding the perfect pair of socks, removing salt from his pretzel sticks, sharpening pencils, and winning a ticket for holding a rope for the Woody Woodpecker balloon at Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. He was also known for eating Snickers bars with a fork and knife. After several months of her working for him, Mr. Pitt was going to put Elaine in his will. However, he decided to fire her instead after he suspected her and her friend, Jerry Seinfeld, were plotting to kill him after finding out the former was in his will.
Justin Pitt was portrayed by the late Ian Abercrombie.
Biography[]
In "The Diplomat's Club," Justin was going to put Elaine in his will, claiming she was like a daughter to him. He and Jerry Seinfeld met at the Pharmacracy, but he fires her after he and his attorney suspect Elaine and Jerry are trying to kill him.
Testifying against Elaine[]
- "She tried to smother me with a pillow."
- ―Justin Pitt, during his testimony against Elaine[src]
When Elaine, Jerry, George, and Kramer were arrested in Latham County on a charge of criminal indifference, the so-called "New York Four" were brought to trial at the Latham District County Court. In an attempt to demonstrate to the jury that the event for which they were charged was not an isolated incident, District Attorney Hoyt called on several individuals from the four's past to testify against them, one of whom was Mr. Pitt. As he made his way to the witness stand, Jerry greeted him with a "Hiya." At Mr. Hoyt's prompting, Mr. Pitt explained that Elaine was under his employment from September 1994 until May 1995, when he terminated her. Mr. Hoyt asked why Elaine had been terminated, and Mr. Pitt informed him that she had tried to kill him. As the attendees of the trial gasped, Mr. Hoyt asked how Elaine had tried to kill him, and Mr. Pitt replied that she had tried to smother him with a pillow. From her seat, Elaine yelled out to Mr. Pitt that his accusation was untrue, but Judge Arthur Vandelay banged his gavel, and she quieted down. Mr. Hoyt then asked why Elaine would kill him, and Mr. Pitt explained that she and Jerry had discovered she was in his will.
Following several other witnesses, including Yev Kassem and Babu Bhatt, the jury began deliberating on its verdict. As they did so, Mr. Pitt sat outside the courtroom along with Mabel Choate, Marla Penny, Joe Bookman, Marcelino, and Roger Hoffman, waiting, glancing at Bookman. Once the jury finished their deliberations, everyone was summoned back into the courtroom, and Mr. Pitt stood in the back alongside the others who had testified against Elaine, Jerry, George, and Kramer. When the jury found them guilty, Mr. Pitt cheered enthusiastically.
Characteristics[]
- He's very particular about the white socks that he wears, forcing Elaine to spend hours looking for the perfect pair. This mission kept Elaine from going to Atlantic City with Jerry, George and Kramer for the Miss America pageant in "The Chaperone".
- He has an aversion to fountain pens, and doesn't allow ink in office. A fountain pen's explosion was at the core of a scene at the end of “The Gymnast”: Elaine gripped his coat while her hands were covered in ink to get him to stop staring at a Magic Eye poster and go to a meeting, at which the ink got on his upper lip, lending him a resemblance to Hitler as he emphatically told a meeting of investors that "we will annex Poland by the spring at any cost and our stock will rise high!"
- He eats his Snickers candy bars with a knife and fork, which became the running joke for "The Pledge Drive".
- He also seems to have a fondness for Woody Woodpecker, and in "The Mom and Pop Store" got to live out his childhood dream of holding up the Woody balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
- Pitt is very wealthy, and lives in an expensive apartment building. This set up the plot of “The Doorman”.
- He was a close friend of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and hires Elaine because he believes she looks like her.
- He is British and speaks with a Received Pronunciation (BBC English) accent.