NameLesa Mae O’DANIEL 315
Birth Date16 Feb 1972 Age: 45
Birth PlaceJacksonville, Florida
Birth MemoFort Eglin AFB
Residence Place15658 Horace Street Los Angles Ca 91344
FatherJohnie Ray O’DANIEL (1952-2017)
Misc. Notes
Biography:
Lesa Mae Esparza (maiden name O’Daniel)
Born February 16, 1972 in Jacksonville, FL (Fort Eglin Air Force base) as the 1st of 3 children – brothers Johnnie and David O’Daniel. Dad left the air force and we started to move around – first to Ohio, where my brothers were born. Dad struggled for years to get any sort of substantial work off the ground – he was a construction worker/roofer by trade – but the economy wasn’t great for construction in Ohio, so we moved to Colorado where construction work was paying an “enormous” sum of $11 per hour (!). We lived there for a few years before moving back again to Ohio and then back once more to Colorado. Parents’ marriage was very rough and didn’t work out in the end. Dad left the family around 1981. We would reconnect a couple times after that but only for a few brief visits. I never saw him in person again after 1993.
Despite moving around so much (we moved 3 times while I was in the 3rd grade), I excelled in school. It was my only escape from our home life. I ended up graduating 11th in my class in high school (graduated from Colonel White high school in Dayton OH, 1990). With a couple of scholarships under my belt and financial aid picking up the rest, I was able to become the first person on my maternal side of the family – and possibly, one of the first on my paternal side (not sure) to graduate from college. I sang in a band in college for about 3 years, we did some small tours in the Midwest and then I decided I wanted to commit to school instead of the band. I married my college sweetheart (Josh Wintringham) in 1993 while still in college. I then graduated from Wright State University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in mathematics. Tired of the small town feel and lack of opportunity in Dayton (coupled with a desire to live in a more diverse city), I moved to New York City in 1995. We were extremely happy in NYC, even though it was difficult financially. We both worked 2 jobs and I was going to grad school. I finished grad school and got my MBA from CUNY Baruch in 2001. A few months later, I was working as a graphic artist at Goldman Sachs when 9/11 happened. We were about 10 blocks south of the World Trade Center and could easily see the planes enter the buildings that day from our office window. It was horrific and scary and confusing to be in the city at that time, but I didn’t want to leave just yet. After many frustrating attempts to get a job with my new degree (challenging since so many highly experienced people were in the work force after losing jobs in NYC after 9/11), I decided I didn’t want to live in a closet anymore and needed a bigger home to live in and I wanted to start a family.
We decided in 2003 to move to Los Angeles – we had visited friends there several times and fell in love with the city. One year later, our son Isaak was born. After working in the IT field for 2 years at Goldman Sachs in L.A., I decided to become a stay-at-home mom to our son. After a couple years doing that, in 2006 I realized I wasn’t happy in my marriage and we decided to get a divorce. We remain friends to this day and we continue to be co-parents for our son. The following year, I began waiting tables again to support myself after the divorce. I ended up working in a comedy club – The Laugh Factory on the Sunset Strip. I had always loved comedy. My first day there, I met the person who would be my 2nd husband – comedian Felipe Esparza. We didn’t fall in love right away – had an on-again-off-again relationship for a couple years. But then we fell for each other for good and then moved in together in 2008.
Felipe’s career was not at a good point at all when I met him. He had experienced bouts of depression and drug abuse before I met him and that had hurt his career. He was still a bit immature when it came to business. In 2010, Felipe auditioned for NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and he got in. We worked very hard on pulling out his best material to use throughout the season of the show. In the end, he won the grand prize - $250,000 and a holding deal with NBC. It helped get rid of our debt, but it also helped Felipe get recognized and booked more as a headliner in clubs all over the country. We co-produced his first comedy special for Showtime and Netflix “They’re Not Gonna Laugh at You”. All of a sudden, his business was too busy for him to manage. I was busy running the IT department in a small law firm, but suddenly, Felipe’s business took over both our lives. He needed help and he needed someone organized and someone who knew how to work with him – I was the default choice and was now torn between 2 work lives. I eventually got so busy with Felipe’s work that I resigned from my IT job in 2014. We finally tied the knot officially in December 2014. Ever since then, I’ve been managing Felipe full time and working closely with his talent agent and booking agent to help grow his career. We just self-produced his second stand-up special, “Translate This”, and we sold it to HBO for 2 years. It premieres Sept 30, 2017.
Hobbies: Even though I absolutely love my work with Felipe and I take pride in the amount his business has grown, I wish I had more time to spend with my hobbies. I love to knit, I love to restore old furniture, I’m Ms. Fix-It around the house and I love to build things. I also love to spend time with our rabbit and now that we have a new house, I am planning on being a foster parent to several rescued, abandoned, abused rabbits here in Los Angeles county.
Spouses
Birth Date11 Jun 1968 Age: 48
Birth PlaceSinaloa, Mexico
Family ID15521
Marr Date13 Dec 1993
ChildrenFelipe
Family ID15425
Marr Date29 Dec 1993
ChildrenIsaak Ludlow (2004-)
Last Modified 16 May 2017Created 17 May 2017 Rick Gleason - ricksgenealogy@gmail.com