‘There’s nothing interesting about me – and no interest in me’: how Larry David’s new biography nearly didn’t happen

Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry David might be the most begrudgingly authorised biography ever written. The story of how author Blake J Harris convinced the comedy titan to “tolerate” him begins, of all places, at Fox News.It was 2020 and Harris’s second book, The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality, had been published the previous year. Palmer Luckey, the Oculus founder, was “fired for being a Trump supporter” and Harris, anything but a Trump fan, simply reported the facts. Speaking on the phone from his home in Colorado, he explains: “My book ended up doing well because I was all over rightwing media, as they loved having me on. I was the liberal journalist who exposed the truth about how conservatives were treated in Silicon Valley.”Glenn Beck was one of several rightwing commentators who gave Harris a television platform that helped his book to succeed. He even asked if the author would consider writing his biography. Harris politely declined but started to ponder whether there was a public figure he would like to spend years of his life researching and writing about. One day, while taking a shower, he started to think about the way Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm had shaped his sense of humour, formative years, his entire worldview. Harris had an epiphany – he would write about the man behind them, Larry David.Larry David talks to Jerry Seinfeld on set while filming Seinfeld’s last episode. Photograph: David Hume Kennerly/Getty ImagesHarris had written a lengthy piece for ESPN to mark the finale, at the end of 2015, of The League, a sitcom written and directed by Jeff Schaffer. Schaffer was a Seinfeld writer who would become David’s chief collaborator as Curb Your Enthusiasm wore on. Schaffer liked Harris’s proposal because he felt there should be a biography of his mentor, arguably the most significant comedy writer in American television history. He was also aware that his boss would be reticent given David was the man whom comedy writer Alan Zweibel once described as: “The only person I know who has buyer’s remorse before he buys something.”Emails flew back and forth in August 2020, with the potential subject informing the potential author that this was a bad idea. In one, reproduced in the prologue of Emperor of Nothing, the subtext is clear – curb your enthusiasm: “There are far better ways to spend your time. There’s nothing interesting about me and there’s no interest in me. That’s not being modest. It’s the truth. So why the book? My parents are dead, so now we’re only left with my kids and my wife to read it. I don’t think three books is making it to the bestsellers’ list. Surely there are better subjects that would welcome a biography.”Harris was not deterred. He enlisted David’s friends and explained to his hero that this would not be a conventional biography, but rather David as “the protagonist in an ensemble story”. Eventually, to appease his friends in a way his Curb Your Enthusiasm alter ego rarely would, David sent Harris a five-word email: “Oh Jesus. If we must.”Larry David and Barack Obama pictured together for HBO sketch miniseries, Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness. Photograph: HBOWhen Harris was eventually introduced to his idol, he had what he considers one of the greatest ideas of his life: a ploy George Costanza (the scheming Seinfeld character modelled on David) could be proud of. He decided to focus on a shared interest: “I really wanted to make a good impression with Larry and show him I’m someone he can just shoot the shit with … I’m not a typical stiff journalist who’s going to make his life difficult … So, I suggested for that first conversation … the only topic I want to talk about is the New York Yankees.” (David is a lifelong fan.)Steering clear of the work in that initial chat proved an inspired move, even if, six years on, David recently told Harris: “I agreed to do the book, but I immediately regretted it.” Those regrets will be his alone: what started with a conversation about baseball is a 576-page tome that captures the spirit of the comedy great in ways that suggest Harris understands the Davidian shtick so well that this is the closest we will get to a Larry David memoir. Take the story of David’s birth, which reads as a glorious tribute to the late Richard Lewis, his best friend and collaborator: “On 29 June 1947, at Brooklyn Jewish hospital, a remarkable little boy was brought into the world. This boy – who’d prove to be special in so many ways – would by the age of thirty become one of the most influential comedians of his era. Three days later, at that same hospital, another little boy was born. That boy’s name was Larry David.”Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Photograph: HBOThe author spoke to friends, family, colleagues and neighbours as he attempted to forensically trace a journey that began in Brooklyn, encompassed years of struggle on the standup circuit and would ultimately produce two of the greatest television comedies in the history of the medium. Few people manage to produce a work of such quality once; to do it twice is almost unprecedented.The book is especially compelling when covering David’s lean years (a period that stretched into his early 40s). It explains how he found himself picking out potential spots in the street for when he would inevitably become homeless, despite being viewed as the “comedian’s comedian” by his peers. His talent was never in doubt, only his temperament. Harris is skilled at drawing parallels between the art and the life, just as Seinfeld and Curb were at their best when blending fact and fiction. We learn about our hero giggling uncontrollably at a piano recital when confronted with a Pez dispenser, quitting his job at Saturday Night Live in a fit of pique on a Friday only to walk back in the following Monday as though nothing had happened, and taking part in a masturbation contest. All this would become material during the Seinfeld years: Jerry ruins George’s girlfriend’s recital by making Elaine laugh with Pez; George screams at his boss and storms out, then acts as though nothing has happened when he realises the financial implications; and The Contest, in which the four main actors have a wager to determine who can go the longest without indulging in onanism, won David an Emmy. In 2009, The Contest was No 1 in TV Guide’s Top 100 Episodes of All Time.Larry David in 1981. Photograph: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty ImagesIndeed, every funny life experience in those early years would invariably find its way into a David sitcom. The urgency of the writing and our awareness of the greatness to come ensures Harris’s biography rattles along like a thriller, but one which, rather than heading inexorably towards a crime scene, instead leads to some of the greatest art of the past century. Harris reassured David, who was afraid of looking egotistical, that he “could hide in his own biography”, due to it including interviews with people other than himself. When he heard Harris was talking to friends and collaborators, David urged him not to “bother them”. Sarah Silverman allayed the biographer’s fears: “That’s so Larry. What he doesn’t realise is what a joy it is for us to speak to you about him.”Harris describes his subject as the “idealised version of the artist we all wish we were”, a man far more concerned with artistic integrity than financial gain. In the 1980s, long before the fame and fortune, Larry wrote a screenplay entitled Prognosis: Negative. His manager sold the script and was thrilled when she secured a hefty payday for a rewrite. In an unprecedented move, the struggling comic asked for the fee to be negotiated down from $35,000 to $5,000 because he thought the material was good and had no wish to make wholesale changes.Through Harris’s biography, we learn that this strange combination of unerring belief in his own ability on the one hand and low self-esteem on the other has defined the career of the comic genius. During his standup days, he would routinely open with the following esoteric bit: “You seem like a very good audience tonight. I’m wondering, may I use the tu form with you people? Because I feel very close to you. Do you mind if I jump into the tu form?”By David’s own admission, it got nothing “60 to 70% of the time”. When Seinfeld asked his future collaborator why he persisted in opening with a routine that rarely worked, the answer was unequivocal: “I think that’s funny! And if that’s not funny, why am I even doing standup? What’s the point?” Typically defiant, he extended it: “You know, Caesar used the tu form even after Brutus stabbed him.” Thus, Seinfeld got an early glimpse of a man who would not be cowed by outside interference.Harris was grateful that David largely chose not to interfere with his manuscript. His only real notes were asking for sections to be toned down where he appeared “too nice”, especially in relation to his daughters (“What father doesn’t love his daughters?”). He did, however, witness one trademark David rant when he was invited to appear as a background actor in the Curb finale, a story he is delighted to relay over the phone.Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm season nine. Photograph: HBOHarris and Ken David, Larry’s older brother, were sitting at a table in the background while Larry and Richard Lewis improvised an argument. The pair of extras were instructed to mouth their words, but not speak audibly. Larry’s sibling, however, appeared not to have got the memo and audibly started trying to talk sports with Harris. Harris tells me: “In the middle of the take, Larry seamlessly turned from yelling at Richard Lewis to yelling at his brother and telling him he was supposed to be quiet and that he was ruining the take.”As an early Curb tagline made clear: “Just because he’s made it, doesn’t mean he’s got it made.” David, it seems, will never stop shouting. Emperor of Nothing perfectly captures the evolution of an artist – even as the man steadfastly refuses to change.