Modified On February 26, 2009
Jerry Seinfeld and NBC are heralding the launch of a new reality show.
The comedian’s project is tentatively called The Marriage Ref and features celebrities, comedians and athletes who will judge couples in the midst of marital disputes while recommending various strategies to resolve their problems.
The Female Half thinks perhaps Eric Arthur Nederlander could’ve used a “marriage ref.” The following is from a November 9, 1999, article in the New York Daily News:
June 13, 1998: Jessica Danielle Sklar, 26, weds New York theater scion Eric Arthur Nederlander, 32, after five-year relationship.
August 1998: Sklar reportedly meets Jerry Seinfeld at the Reebok Sports Club after returning from her three-week honeymoon. Rumors fly that they are seeing each other after they are spotted working out and eating lunch at the club. Sklar and Seinfeld deny they’re together.
October 1998: Nederlander files for divorce.
November 1998: Seinfeld and Sklar’s romance hits the front pages after the couple is seen all around town– at a Halloween party together hanging with Donald Trump and Naomi Campbell, watching the New York Marathon, shopping at Zabar’s and looking for an apartment for Sklar.
December: Seinfeld hunts for a house in the Hamptons with Sklar. Meanwhile, Nederlander reportedly buys an apartment downtown and puts the upper West Side pad he once lived in with Sklar on the market.
February: Sklar and Seinfeld have a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at SoHo’s Balthazar restaurant.
April-June: The romance is still going strong, and the couple is inseparable – seen together at Orlando’s Universal Islands of Adventure, watching Wayne Gretzky’s last game at Madison Square Garden, hanging with Monica Lewinsky after her appearance on Saturday Night Live, attending Austin Powers movie premiere and sitting courtside at the Knicks-Pacers games.
August: The couple returns from vacation in Siena, Italy, and announces they are separating for a while.
September: Seinfeld misses Sklar’s 28th birthday party at downtown club Halo as word spreads that they are on the outs. Seinfeld sends his love from out of town.
October: Jessica Sklar reportedly takes up with Today show assistant producer David Friedman. But she and Seinfeld remain close, frequently talking with each other.
On the sixth of the following month, the couple announced their wedding plans.
There is supreme irony in the spectacle of a man– who romanced (and subsequently married) a newlywed– producing a show that will examine married couples and “recommend various strategies to resolve their problems.” We wonder if any television or social critics will have the temerity to point this out.
All has worked out well. (Click here for the NYT account of the romance and eventual November 21, 2004, marriage of Nederlander and Dr. Lindsey Kupferberg in Palm Beach. Perhaps the Nederlander-Kupferbergs can appear on Marriage Ref during sweeps month!)