Jackie Chiles

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Phil Morris as Jackie Chiles

Jackie Chiles is a fictional attorney portrayed by American actor Phil Morris in the NBC television program Seinfeld.

The character began as Cosmo Kramer's lawyer on Seinfeld. Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both are bespectacled, mustachioed, African-American lawyers with similar names and penchants for grandiose vocabulary. Morris also emulates Cochran's distinctive enunciation and delivery for the character. After appearing in several episodes during the series' later years, Chiles, along with many other minor characters from the show's past, appeared again in the program's finale and was crucial in convicting the characters on charges of "wanton indifference". The character's catch phrase is "I am outraged!", as well as saying three adjectives of three syllables each, such as "Fabulous, Stupendous, Outrageous!".

Since the end of Seinfeld, the character has appeared in a series of television advertisements.

Morris planned to produce a spin-off as Chiles but the pilot never came to fruition. [1]

Chiles represents Kramer in three different episodes, and appears in two others:

In the first episode with Chiles ("The Maestro"), Kramer sneaks a cafe latte into a movie theatre and burns himself while trying to climb over the legs of another patron. The coffee company offers a settlement: a lifetime of free coffee at all of their stores throughout North America and Europe and $50,000 in cash; Kramer takes the offer of free coffee before the executive finishes speaking and mentions the cash.

In the second episode featuring Chiles ("The Caddy"), Jackie sues Oh Henry! candy bar heiress Sue Ellen Mischke for allegedly causing Kramer personal injury due to an automobile accident. Kramer is distracted while driving when he sees Mischke walking the streets of New York City wearing only a bra. Chiles describes her actions as "lewd, lascivious, salacious, outrageous!" The lawsuit fails when Kramer demands she try on the bra to prove it is hers. It fails to fit because she tries putting it on over a leotard. Jackie yells at Kramer, "Of course a bra's not going to fit on over a leotard. A bra's got to fit right up against a person's skin...like a glove!" — an obvious parody of the O.J. Simpson murder case.

In the third episode featuring Chiles ("The Friars Club"), *When Kramer's experiment with "Da Vinci sleep" causes him to fall asleep during sex, his Italian girlfriend thinks he has died and gets some friends to dump him in the river. When he comes to, Kramer accuses her of trying to murder him. The woman calls Chiles, who is her regular lawyer. Upon hearing that Kramer is involved, however, Chiles declares "I don't want nothing to do with it!"

In the fourth episode featuring Chiles ("The Abstinence"), Kramer's face ages prematurely when he turns his apartment into a smoking lounge. Kramer then consults with Jackie about filing suit against the tobacco companies for his disfigurement. When Kramer asks if Jackie feels they have a case, his reply is "Your face is my case." Jackie and Kramer then meet with a tobacco-company lawyer where Jackie tells her "By the time this case gets to court, he'll be nothing but a shrunken head." After the tobacco-company lawyer tells them she'll have an offer to settle out of court in the morning, Jackie tells Kramer, "Jackie's cashing in on your wretched disfigurement." Kramer settles the case without Jackie's knowledge for a Marlboro-man style billboard in Times Square featuring his own face. Jackie dubs this "the most public yet of my many humiliations."

Jackie represents George, Elaine, Jerry, and Kramer in the final episode, when they violate the Good Samaritan law. Despite losing the case, he gets some satisfaction in sleeping with Sidra (from "The Implant"), which would have been more satisfying if the jury didn't get to their decision so quickly. His last line of the series is the same as Sidra's line about her breasts from the aforementioned episode: "By the way, Jerry, they're real, and they're spectacular".

[edit] Trivia

Phil Morris originally debuted on the never-run version of the episode "The Non-Fat Yogurt." Two versions of the episode were filmed, depending on the outcome of the mayoral race of New York City. If Mayor Dinkins was re-elected, Phil Morris would appear as Dinkins' Representative. However, Giuliani won, and Phil did not appear. If Dinkins was re-elected, Morris would never have starred as Jackie Chiles in future episodes, as he would have already appeared in the series as a different character. This was yet another piece of good fortune the show experienced during its nine years on the air.