[msb-alumni] Jerry Stiller, Who Drew Long Laughs for His Short Fuse, Is Dead at 92 on May 11, 2020

From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 12 May 2020 16:45:54 -0400

BlankJerry Stiller, Who Drew Long Laughs for His Short Fuse, Is Dead at 92. By
Peter
Keepnews.

In the 1960s, he and his wife, Anne Meara, found success as a comedy team. In
the
1990s, he found it again as Frank Costanza on "Seinfeld."

Jerry Stiller, a classically trained actor who became a comedy star twice -- in
the
1960s in partnership with his wife, Anne Meara, and in the 1990s with a
memorable
recurring role on "Seinfeld" -- died early Monday morning at his home on the
Upper
West Side of Manhattan. He was 92. His death was announced on Twitter by his
son, the
actor Ben Stiller, who did not specify the cause.

Mr. Stiller's accomplishments as an actor were considerable. He appeared on
Broadway
in Terrence McNally's frantic farce "The Ritz" in 1975 and David Rabe's dark
drama
"Hurlyburly" in 1984.

Off Broadway, he was in "The Threepenny Opera"; in Central Park, he played
Shakespearean clowns for Joseph Papp; onscreen, he was seen as a police
detective in
"The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three" (1974) and Divine's husband in John
Waters's
"Hairspray" (1988).

But he was best known as a comedian. The team of Stiller and Meara was for many
years
a familiar presence in nightclubs, on television variety and talk shows, and in
radio
and television commercials, most memorably for Blue Nun wine and Amalgamated
Bank.

Years after the act broke up, Mr. Stiller captured a new generation of fans as
Frank
Costanza, the short-tempered and not entirely sane father of Jason Alexander's
George, on the NBC series "Seinfeld," one of the most successful television
comedies
of all time. Mr. Stiller was in fewer than 30 of the 180 episodes of
"Seinfeld,"
whose nine seasons began in 1989, and he did not make his first appearance
until the
fifth season. (Another actor appeared as Frank in one episode of Season 4,
although
his scenes were later reshot with Mr. Stiller for the syndicated reruns.) But
he was
an essential part of the show's appeal. He was nominated for an Emmy in 1997.

Frank Costanza was a classic sitcom eccentric whose many dubious
accomplishments
included marketing a brassiere for men and creating Festivus, a winter holiday
"for
the rest of us," celebrated with tests of strength and other bizarre rituals.
Frank
was known for his explosive, often irrational anger, and in most of his
episodes he
was sooner or later yelling, usually at his son or his wife, Estelle (played by
Estelle Harris), or at both of them.

Just a few months after the final episode of "Seinfeld" (in which Frank had one
last
moment in the spotlight, spending most of it yelling), broadcast on May 14,
1998, Mr.
Stiller was back on television playing another off-kilter father -- a
marginally more
restrained version of Frank Costanza -- on another sitcom, "The King of
Queens,"
which made its debut that fall on CBS. A regular this time, he played Arthur
Spooner,
the excitable father of the wife (Leah Remini) of the working-slob central
character
(Kevin James), for the show's entire nine-season run. Ms. Meara was a guest
star on
several episodes of "The King of Queens," and her character married his in the
series
finale.

Younger viewers might not have known it, but their scenes together represented
the
reunion of one of the most successful male-female comedy teams of all time. Mr.
Stiller and Ms. Meara met in 1953, when they were both struggling actors, and
married
shortly afterward. They worked together in 1959 with the Compass Players, an
improvisational theater group that later evolved into the Second City.

They began performing as a duo in New York nightclubs in 1961 and soon made the
first
of about three dozen appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Visually, Ms. Meara and Mr. Stiller were a study in contrasts. She was
statuesque and
bright-eyed; he was short and stocky, and always looked a little lost.

Another contrast formed the basis for much of their comedy: Her heritage was
Irish-American and Roman Catholic (although she converted to Judaism in 1961);
his
was Eastern European and Jewish. At a time when it was rare for men and women
of
different religions to date, let alone marry, Stiller and Meara broke new comic
ground with their routines about the rocky but loving relationship of Hershey
Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, characters loosely based on themselves.

The first such sketch, as recounted in Mr. Stiller's autobiography, "Married to
Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara" (2000) (available on Bookshare),
set the
tone. One exchange began with Mary Elizabeth saying, "They're having a dance
tonight
at my sodality."
Hershey replied, "At your what?"
"My sodality."
"What's that?"
"Well, it's a girls' organization in my parish."
"You mean like Hadassah?"
"What's that?"
"It's a girls' organization in my parish."

The comedy partnership of Mr. Stiller and Ms. Meara flourished for more than a
decade
and found a new outlet when they began doing commercials. But they eventually
went
their separate ways professionally -- although they remained happily married
and
continued to perform together from time to time. Ms. Meara died in 2015 at 85.

Mr. Stiller worked into the early 1990s but was less active than Ms. Meara, who
had
recurring roles on several television shows. Then came the call from
"Seinfeld," and
his career resurgence began.

Gerald Isaac Stiller was born in Brooklyn on June 8, 1927, the first of four
children
of William and Bella (Citron) Stiller. His father, a son of immigrants from
Galicia,
drove a taxi and later a bus. His mother, who was born in Poland, was a
homemaker.

Growing up in Brooklyn and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Jerry was
inspired to
perform by seeing Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante in person. He began acting at
the
Henry Street Playhouse while attending Seward Park High School.

After serving in the Army during and immediately after World War II, he studied
theater at Syracuse University under the G.I. Bill, learning about Greek
tragedy and
Shakespearean drama from the celebrated teacher Sawyer Falk. He began working
in
summer stock almost immediately after graduating in 1950 and was appearing Off
Broadway a few years later.

Mr. Stiller remained active throughout his 80s. He was characteristically manic
in a
series of commercials for Capital One Bank, seen on television and heard on
radio in
2012.

That same year, he played a group-therapy patient in the independent film
"Excuse Me
for Living."

In 2014, he provided the voice for the title character in an unorthodox
animated
television special, "How Murray Saved Christmas."

In 2016, he reprised the role of the agent Maury Ballstein in "Zoolander 2,"
the
sequel to the hit 2001 comedy about a male model, starring and directed by his
son.

"I've never thought of stopping," Mr. Stiller told The Daily News of New York
in
2012. "The only time you ever stop working is when they don't call you."

In addition to his son, whose other movies include the "Meet the Parents" films
and
"There's Something About Mary," Mr. Stiller is survived by his daughter, Amy
Stiller,
an actress and comedian; a sister, Doreen; and two grandchildren.

Mr. Stiller and Ms. Meara's swan song as a team was a series of web-only video
clips
produced by their son and posted from November 2010 to March 2011. Each clip
lasts
about two minutes and consists of the two of them discussing a single topic.

One topic is obituaries. In that clip, Mr. Stiller says he is "shocked" that
The New
York Times might have already prepared their obituaries and wonders whether the
newspaper is "up to date" on his having worked with Veronica Lake in a
production of
"Peter Pan" (about six decades earlier).

And Ms. Meara reveals that years ago Mr. Stiller had persuaded The Times to
publish
her father's obituary by falsely claiming that he had written material for
their
comedy act.

Mr. Stiller's agitated response: "What you just said is going to get us in
trouble
with The New York Times! I may never get an obit!"

He needn't have worried.

Follow-Ups:
- [msb-alumni] Re: Jerry Stiller, Who Drew Long Laughs for His Short Fuse, Is Dead at 92 on May 11, 2020
  - From: Richard McKinley

[msb-alumni] Jerry Stiller, Who Drew Long Laughs for His Short Fuse, Is Dead at 92 on May 11, 2020

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