Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the television drama House. Lisa has had a very eclectic television career. She has guest-starred in several popular top-10 television shows. On the big screen, Lisa has appeared in several popular films, including As Good As It Gets, The Doors, Love Affair, Susan's Plan, Indiscreet, What Women Want.
Education
At 16, Edelstein was a cheerleader for Donald Trump's New Jersey Generals. Edelstein soon encountered trouble when she organized a protest, because the team was forcing the cheerleaders to go and stand in bars while wearing their uniforms. Edelstein said she felt this was "akin to prostitution" and started a cheerleader strike.
While living in New York, she became involved in the club scene (known there only as "Lisa E.") and caused enough of a stir in the community to be dubbed New York City's "Queen of Downtown" by writer and fellow celebutante James St. James, who briefly refers to Edelstein in his 1999 book Disco Bloodbath.
Career
After being dubbed a "celebutante" by The New York Times magazine during her club kid days Edelstein used her new-found celebrity to write, compose, and star in an original musical called Positive Me in response to the growing AIDS crisis of the 1980s. After a brief stint hosting Awake on the Wild Side for MTV in 1990, she spent the early 1990s appearing in guest roles on several popular comedies, including Mad About You, Wings, The Larry Sanders Show, Sports Night and Seinfeld, where she played George Costanza's frustrated girlfriend, the "Risotto Girl" (the only girlfriend of George's to appear in multiple episodes other than Susan Ross). Bigger roles in TV dramas soon followed, among them the lesbian sister on ABC's Relativity (1996); a high-priced call girl turned Rob Lowe's date on The West Wing (1999); an assigned male at birth (AMAB) transgender woman on Ally McBeal (2000); and Ben Covington's (Scott Speedman) girlfriend on Felicity (2001). She also continued to land guest star spots on such shows as ER, Frasier, Just Shoot Me!, Without a Trace, and Judging Amy.
The actress has lent her voice to several animated programs including King of the Hill, American Dad!, Superman: The Animated Series (as Mercy Graves, Lex Luthor's bodyguard, a role she later reprised in several episodes of Justice League) and the video game adaptation of Blade Runner (1997). Edelstein's film credits include small parts and cameos in What Women Want, Keeping the Faith, As Good as It Gets, and Daddy Day Care.
From 2004 to 2011, she played Dr. Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and frequent character foil and ex-girlfriend to title character Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) on Fox's TV series House, M.D. In May 2011, Edelstein announced that she would not return for the eighth season of House.
Edelstein starred in the Lifetime network movie Special Delivery with Brenda Song. In June 2011, it was revealed that she would join the cast of The Good Wife for a "juicy" multi-episode arc. She plays Celeste Serano, an attorney and one of Will Gardner's (Josh Charles) old flames.