42 AMERICANWAY
FEBRUARY 1 2008
S T A R S T O R Y
sisterandabest frienddie in thesameweek.
When a friend called to ask if she could
come over to keep her company, Grace re-
plied, “You’d better not. They’re dropping
likeflies aroundhere.”
Her father’s side is equally fascinating:
WilliamLouis-Dreyfus isaFrenchman,and
his Louis Dreyfus Corporation has helped
him rank among theworld’s richest people.
Forbes recently estimated his net worth at
$3.4billion.
Her parents divorcedwhen she was just
a year old. Her mother eventuallymarried
L.T. Bowles, dean of George Washington
University’s medical school. He took the
family along onhis travels tohelp establish
hospitals in developing countries for Proj-
ect Hope. By the time she was seven, she
change your perspectivemore than having
children of your own does. “There is some-
thing about having children that definitely
changes your perspective on your universe,”
Louis-Dreyfus says. “Ever sincehavingkids
[
Henry in 1992andCharles in 1997
]
, Ihave
felt a calling towork todefend the environ-
ment to a certain extent. I live in Southern
California, in Los Angeles, a large city, but
part of that is surrounded by the natural
world. When you are seeing the ocean ev-
ery day, you are remindedof the things you
need to do to protect your surroundings,
your environment.”
The beach provided another one of the
turning points that have inspired Louis-
Dreyfus’s environmentalism. She’d take
walks on the beach with Henry when he
was young. But often the water looked too
polluted for Henry to dip his feet in. “The
idea of living at the ocean’s edge and hav-
ing a beach that’s unswimmable — it just
doesn’t make any sense to me,” she says.
“That certainly helpedmotivate me. Obvi-
ously, some bad decisions are beingmade,
and theyhave to stop.”
Her response was to get more active in
local environmental efforts. But how could
she help save an ocean?Well, the power of
celebrity helps. But so, too, does behind-
the-sceneswork, like thekind she’sdone for
Heal the Bay. “When we hired a develop-
“The ideaof living
at theocean’s edge
andhavingabeach
that’sunswimmable
— it justdoesn’t
makeany sense to
me.That certainly
helpedmotivateme.”
andher sistershad lived inTunisia, Colom-
bia, and Sri Lanka, where they went with-
out private schools and sometimes even
without indoor plumbing. “This is all when
I was in elementary school,” she recalls. “It
certainly raisedmy awareness of the world
outsidemyself andof theworldoutside the
UnitedStates. Itwas an eye-opener.”
Of course, few things open your eyes or
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