John Larroquette - Personal Life

Personal Life

Larroquette was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Berthalla Oramous Larroquette (née Helmstetter), a department store clerk, and John Edgar Bernard, Sr., who was in the United States Navy. He grew up in the Ninth ward of New Orleans not far from the French Quarter. He played clarinet and saxophone through childhood but quit when he discovered acting after seeing some actors rehearse the Tennessee Williams play Vieux Carré in 1973. He moved to Hollywood in 1973 after working in radio and the record business.

Larroquette met his wife Elizabeth Ann Cookson in 1974 while working in a play called Enter Laughing. They have three children; one of his sons, Jonathan Larroquette, co-hosts a popular comedy podcast called Uhh Yeah Dude.

In the seventies and eighties, Larroquette battled alcoholism. On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 10, 2007 he joked, "I was known to have a cocktail or 60". He also revealed that he'd suffered from blackouts when drinking, a condition he describes as "horrible." To illustrate the severity of these blackouts, he told Leno about one experience he had while drinking in which he woke up from a nap, realized he was on a plane, and had no idea where it was headed, and was too embarrassed to ask. (He eventually found out the plane was headed from Los Angeles to his hometown of New Orleans.) He stopped drinking in February 1982.