He left us with very funny stuff. This world lost another great person as far
as I'm concerned.
On May 12, 2020, at 4:46 PM, Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jerry 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.
