Age: 54
female
Leslie Erin Grossman (born October 25, 1971) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Mary Cherry on the television series Popular and as Lauren in What I Like About You. Grossman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. As a youth, she was a cast member on Kids Incorporated. She attended Crossroads School, where she directed plays. She started acting in her senior year at Sarah Lawrence College. Grossman had a regular role in What I Like About You, as Val's co-worker and best friend, Lauren, and appeared in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Nip/Tuck, Charmed and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, amongst other things. She appeared in two movies in 2006, Running with Scissors and Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Grossman also guest starred on Melissa and Joey. She auditioned for the roles of Sam McPherson and Nicole Julian on Popular before having the part of Mary Cherry written for her. In 2000, Grossman married John Bronson. Together, they have one child.
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle. It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact. A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
