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NEED TO KNOW
John O'Hurley played J. Peterman on Seinfeld, Elaine Benes' eccentric boss
J. Peterman was a real person who owned the Peterman Catalog
O'Hurley tells PEOPLE how he came to be in business with the real Peterman
Sometimes, life imitates art, which is something John O'Hurley has learned as he's combined his acting career with business endeavors.
TheNational Dog Showhostfamously playedElaine Benes' eccentric boss, J. Peterman, owner of the eponymous clothing catalog, inSeinfeldfrom 1995 to 1998.
"A lot of people don't realize that the Peterman Company is a real catalog. Consequently, we parodied it without permission and always apologized afterwards," O'Hurley, 71, tells PEOPLE.
Over the years, O'Hurley and the real John Peterman "developed a tight relationship," and soon after, the real one had a business proposal for the "fake" one.
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In early 1999, the J. Peterman Company filed for bankruptcy and was bought by another company, which went bankrupt the following year. When Peterman had the opportunity to buy the company's intellectual property back in 2001, he approached O'Hurley seeking an investment.
"He called me and said, 'I can get the company and put it back together, and we can work from parallel strengths if you'd like to come along,'" O'Hurley recalls. "I wrote him a large check. I like the role so much, I've bought the company."
O'Hurleyhas been part of the companyever since. In fact, he and Peterman even once fought about whether or not they should bring the fictional "urban sombrero" fromSeinfeldto real life. The concept came about when Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Elaine suggested they make the oversized hat, which she described as combining "the spirit of old Mexico with a little big city panache," and put it on the cover of the catalog.
Inspired by the events of the episode, O'Hurley and Peterman ultimately decided to make a limited run of the large, all-brown hats and number them for authenticity.
"They sold out in two seconds," O'Hurley tells PEOPLE.
One of the most notable things about his character, O'Hurley says, was his monologues, many of which had to be cut because they were "always way too long."
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The one thing fans usually quote back to him, he says, "always involves the word 'Elaine.' "
"At the end of the wedding cake episode, I turned to her when I finally discovered that she is the culprit and has been the one who's been wolfing down my priceless piece of wedding cake. I say to Elaine, 'Do you have any idea what happens to butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated British basement? I have a feeling, what you are about to go through will be punishment enough,'" he recalls.
However, he credits his iconic and quotable character to the show's "great writing."
"Shakespeare once said, 'The play is the thing.' He never said the actor was the thing. It's the play, it's the words, and we were blessed with great writers," he tells PEOPLE.
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