Mr. Lippman

Mr. Lippman is the boss of Elaine at Pendant Publishing. He was portrayed mostly by Richard Fancy, but in season 3’s “The Library”, the actor who portrays Mr. Lippman is Harris Shore.

Fictional Biography

Mr. Lippman is the Jewish owner of Pendant Publishing and Elaine's boss for most of the series. He is divorced and has a son, Adam Lippman. Elaine makes numerous descisions that upset Mr. Lippman, such as recommending Marion's book of poetry that brought Kramer to tears in “The Library” (in "The Library" Mr. Lippman is played by Harris Shore).

She convinced him to hire George in “The Red Dot”, whom he promptly fires for having sex with the cleaning woman on his desk.

Mr. Lippman also got upset with her edit of Jake Jarmel's book in “The Sniffing Accountant”, which he felt she added too many exclaimation points.

In “The Cigar Store Indian”, Lippman bought a Cigar Store Indian from Kramer in which he agrees to publish Kramer's coffee table book. He also put Elaine in charge of editing it with Toby.

When a promotion becomes available in “The Fire”, Lippman gives it to Toby because he felt sorry for her losing her pinky toe. It is also revealed that he respects Elaine's opinion in spite of her many mistakes.

In “The Marine Biologist”, he had Elaine help him greet a famous Russian writer Yuri Testikov in a limo, but she ends up offending him by saying War and Peace was originally supposed to be titled War: What is it Good For? Testikov published his latest book with Pendant anyway.

In “The Opposite”, it is revealed Pendant Publishing is in severe financial trouble. Lippman also stops Kramer from continuing his book tour for the coffee table book because of Kramer's appearance on Live! with Regis & Kathie Lee, where he spit bad coffee all over Kathie Lee's dress. Pendant was going to be saved by a Japanese publishing company, but Lippman unintentionally offended the Japanese man by not shaking his hand (Lippman had a cold and wanted to avoid giving him germs). This causes the merger to be called off and puts an end to Pendant Publishing.

In “The Scofflaw”, Lippman was attempting to revive Pendant Publishing by publishing Jake Jarmel's latest book. This failed due to Elaine causing a fight between Jake Jarmel and Lippman over Lippman having identical glasses to Jake's allegedly rare ones.

In “The Muffin Tops”, Elaine encounters Lippmann at Jacopo Peterman's book-signing event. Lippman opens up a bakery that sells only muffin tops called Top of the Muffin to You! This fails because of an inability to dispose of the muffin bottoms. Lippman also invited Elaine to his son's bar mitzvah, where Adam kisses Elaine because he is "a man" now. Adam renounces Judaism when it is revealed he technically isn't a man yet.

Lippman also tries to get together with Elaine in “The Serenity Now”, even renouncing Judaism himself when she claims he only likes her because she has shiksa-peal.

He appears in “The Finale, Part 2” observing the trial. In a deleted scene, he tells District Attorney Hoyt about how he fired George for having sex with the cleaning lady on his desk.