You may feel like you already know everything there is to know about Ellie Kemper thanks
to her adorable characters on The Office and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
But there are plenty of key details that set the real-life woman apart from the ladies
she plays on-screen.
Kemper may seem like the friendly girl-next-door type, but she actually has what she herself
describes as a "very privileged" background.
Her father David Woods Kemper comes from a wealthy and influential Missouri family and
is a descendant of banker and railroad magnate William Thornton Kemper Sr. Furthermore, her
grandmother Mildred Lane Kemper's name is on an art museum at Washington University
in St. Louis.
In 1999, it was Ellie's turn to enter high society, when she made her debut at the age
of 19 at the Veiled Prophet Ball as Elizabeth Claire Kemper.
The party is a symbol of wealth and power, but it hasn't been without controversy.
For one thing, the Veiled Prophet organization didn't include any black men in its ranks
until 1979.
Wearing a white gown and matching full-length gloves when she attended the event, Kemper
was named the Queen of Love and Beauty, becoming the 105th woman to hold the title.
Considering Kemper's familial background, it might seem surprising that she ended up
becoming known for such goofy characters.
But it sounds like despite all their wealth, the whole Kemper clan is quite silly, as evidenced
by Ellie's nickname, "Smelly Ellie."
As the actress explained to Us Weekly,
"I want to be very clear: I don’t actually smell.
'Smelly' just happens to rhyme with 'Ellie.'
My family’s sense of humor is very sophisticated and evolved."
Kemper's privileged upbringing meant that she received the best education St. Louis
had to offer.
She attended the gold star, blue-ribbon Conway Elementary School before moving on to John
Burroughs School for high school.
Another famous John Burroughs alum is Jon Hamm, who was ten years ahead of Kemper.
He returned to his alma mater to teach acting for one year, and in fact, one of his students
was Kemper when she was a freshman.
In 2015, the Mad Men star talked about his former pupil while on the Today show.
"She and her sister were incredibly diligent students, and very, very talented, and the
proof is in the pudding.
They're both working in the industry."
Kemper and Hamm met up again years later when she asked him to attend her one-woman show,
Feeling Sad/Mad With Ellie Kemper.
She later talked about the educational experience with a giggle, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
"Everyone was all ga-ga over him."
Kemper certainly understood those reactions, as she told The AV Club in 2010,
"He was definitely just as handsome back then, and having this grown, tall man teach you
theater, it was like having a hunk in the class."
It seems like a safe bet to assume that Hamm's students never skipped class!
Kemper's snazzy education didn't end after she graduated from high school.
Far from it!
After leaving John Burroughs School, she headed off for an Ivy League education.
While that's impressive, it's not like it was unusual for her family, as her father
attended Harvard and her mom graduated from Princeton.
Ellie also ended up at Princeton, where she joined both the school's improv group, Quipfire!,
and the touring musical-comedy troupe, the Princeton Triangle Club.
She graduated in 2002 with an English degree and then headed to England to work towards
an English Studies graduate degree at Oxford University.
She only lasted a year, though, as she ended up moving to New York City.
Thankfully, her parents were willing and able to support her during her first year in the
big city as she tried to break into the entertainment business.
She later admitted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
"I knew it was an uncertain path, but I had to try it for a couple of years and see what
happened."
Kemper may be known for her acting skills these days, but back when she was a student,
she was apparently quite the athlete, and her sport of choice was field hockey.
She led an undefeated team during her time at John Burroughs, and during her freshman
year at Princeton, the Tigers made it to the national championship, where they lost to
Old Dominion.
However, as she admitted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
"[I spent] most of my time on the bench, which turned out to be a lucky break, because I
quit and got into performing."
In November 2019, Kemper took to Instagram to share an old picture of herself in action
when she was younger along with the caption,
"A gentle reminder that not only was I, excuse me, the CO-CAPTAIN of my high school field
hockey team (not a big deal!!)"
These days, Kemper's career might be red-hot, but her early days in the business consisted
of ads and simple, though sometimes regrettable, comedy sketches.
She got her Screen Actors Guild card for a K-Mart commercial that featured a tarantula
crawling over her face.
That might be enough to get some people to quit the industry entirely, but Kemper saw
it a little differently.
She told Elle Magazine,
"It was so furry and large and it felt closer to a kitten than an insect and it was actually
kind of nice."
From there, Kemper appeared in sketches on Late Night with Conan O'Brien while also doing
web videos for comedy groups.
That's what led to a project that brought her the kind of notoriety that she'd rather
leave behind.
"I really don't like that video, and I wish that I hadn't done it, even though I know
that it's a joke.
I hate that it got sort of big, because I don't think that it's that funny and I don't
want that to be the epitome of my work."
Thankfully for Kemper, her later work has almost fully eclipsed that earlier venture.
Not everything in Kemper's showbiz career has been successful as The Office or Kimmy
Schmidt.
She once auditioned for Saturday Night Live, and while it might seem like she has exactly
the kind of quirky comedic chops that would have made her a valuable addition to that
legendary sketch show, she wasn't hired.
On a 2018 episode of Watch What Happens Live, she explained that she actually agrees with
the choice made by SNL's ultimate decision-maker, creator and producer Lorne Michaels.
"I don't think I would have thrived, throve, on that show, because I don't do celebrity
impressions very well, characters very well."
It's worth noting that Kemper's husband, Michael Koman, writes for SNL nowadays, which may
have calmed her nerves somewhat when she cameoed on the show in 2018 along with her former
Office castmates.
However, she called the experience "totally terrifying" and confessed that she was sick
for days over the thought of performing on the show.
So maybe it really is a good thing that she didn't get the gig all those years ago.
Kemper may have found lasting fame thanks to The Office, but it turns out that she only
got that gig after she tried, and failed, to get a part on another popular series.
She first auditioned for The Office executive producer Greg Daniels when he was casting
a new, then-untitled sitcom that wound up being Parks and Recreation.
While the opportunity on the Amy Poehler-led series didn't work out, Daniels was clearly
impressed enough with Kemper's skills to get her a gig on The Office.
From there, Kemper turned what was meant to be a temporary role into something much more.
She was initially hired for just a few episodes, but the show's producers were so charmed by
her that they ended up asking her to become a series regular.
She then stuck with The Office from 2009 until it ended in 2013, and now it's hard to imagine
the show without her.
So in that sense, it's a good thing that she failed her Parks and Rec audition, even though
we're sure she would've made a great resident of Pawnee.
Ellie isn't the only Kemper who's found success in Hollywood, as her younger sister Carrie
also has a showbiz career.
She's a writer and producer, and her credits include such shows as Nathan for You, Baskets,
and Silicon Valley.
She also even worked as a staff writer on The Office and sometimes got to write lines
for her big sister.
She talked about this with The New York Times, joking,
"It's a great sense of power over her.
If she makes one false move, she's off the show."
Despite the fact that both sisters now work in TV, Ellie has admitted that they weren't
really into what others were watching when they were young.
She told the Los Angeles Times in 2017,
"The pop culture from that time did not seep into my veins.
I always tell my husband it's because I had friends.
I wasn't holed up in my room watching TV.
I don't know where my sister and I were while things were happening.
Maybe it's because we were putting on plays.
I hope I'm not blocking anything."
Even celebrities get starstruck by other famous folks, and it seems that Ellie Kemper is particularly
susceptible to those emotions.
As she admitted to Us Weekly in 2019,
"I fanned out meeting Laurie Metcalf at the Emmys.
I started waving wildly and mouthing 'I love you.'
I mean, I totally lost control.
I really hope she's nearsighted and missed the whole thing."
And that's not the only actress that Kemper is an unabashed fan of.
She also admitted that if a movie about her life were ever made, she would love to cast
Judy Greer, who's known for her supporting parts in such films as 13 Going on 30 and
Ant-Man.
Kemper is also a big music fan.
The first concert she ever went to was a U2 show, and she even told Us Weekly,
"I was convinced Bono was looking right at me."
Kemper happens to have a rather strange collection thanks to one of her recent professional projects.
She wrote a book called My Squirrel Days, which isn't actually about a small rodent
but rather, it tells the story of Kemper's journey from an awkward adolescent to an Emmy-nominated
star in a series of personal anecdotes and essays.
As the book became popular, something quite unexpected ended up happening.
As she described the situation to Us Weekly,
"Thanks to gifts from supportive readers, I think I've amassed the largest assortment
of squirrel paraphernalia in the country!"
She even got a sweet squirrel puppet during an interview on Good Morning America.
"I have a crystal squirrel, I have a squirrel necklace, I have squirrel stuffed animals,
I have squirrel cookies, I have needlepoint squirrels, I have so many - there's so many
squirrels in my life right now."
If Kemper wants to be able to back up her claim about the size of her collection, though,
she might have her work cut out for her.
In order to beat the current international benchmark, she would have to have more than
1,103 items.
That's the total number of the squirrely collection owned by Pavel Gerasimov of Russia, who currently
holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of squirrel-related items.
Yes, there really is an official record for that.
Kemper opened up to Us Weekly in 2019 about a few of her personality quirks that fans
probably don't know about, which range from something she often indulges in to something
she hopes never happens.
And while they may seem random, they're also totally relatable.
For one thing, she revealed that she has a secret obsession with paying a premium for
Amazon's next-day shipping.
That's a shopping habit that many of her fans are also probably guilty of.
And that's not the only way the actress is totally relatable, as she also admitted that
her biggest pet peeve is when people don't obey the rules of traffic.
Those tidbits weren't the only facts that Kemper fessed up to.
When it comes to the thing she dreads the most, she explained that her biggest fear
is dying in an embarrassing way.
Again, that's completely understandable and something that we hope never happens to this
beloved star.
Also, we hope that her death, whether embarrassing or not, doesn't happen anytime soon, because
we're sure she still has decades worth of entertainment to share with the world!
"You probably know me as the cluckin' chicken in those commercials.
But what you probably don't know is that I am severely incontinent."
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