For all the plaudits that Curb Your Enthusiasm received over its lifespan, for how funny and daring and groundbreaking it was, people seem to have missed the fact that it provided Larry David with the perfect opportunity to conceal his true self.
The main character in the show (wealthy former Seinfeld showrunner Larry David) was so superficially similar to its creator (wealthy former Seinfeld showrunner Larry David) that people started to assume they were one and the same. And David seemed to welcome this, shying from most opportunities to reveal himself. On talkshows, he likes to retreat behind the same clutch of anecdotes. When former Seinfeld writer Larry Charles made a two-part documentary about David for HBO in 2022, David had it pulled from schedules the day before broadcast. When I interviewed him for a book I wrote about baldness last year, he only agreed on the proviso that the line of questioning never strayed from hair loss.
