Carl Reiner the resourceful and versatile writer, actor and director who made his way as a “second banana” for Sid Caesar and rose to the forefront of comedy as the creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and straight guy Mel Brooks‘”2000 year old man” has died. He was 98 years old.
Reiner’s assistant Judy Nagy told CBS News that she died of natural causes Monday night at her home in Beverly Hills, California.
He was one of the most esteemed men in show business, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on small, silver screens, in the company of Caesar in the 1950s, like the growling and showy Alan Brady of “The Dick Van Dyke Show “and in movies like” The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming “and” It’s a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy world. “
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In recent years, he was part of the rogue gang in the “Ocean’s Eleven” movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including “Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age” and “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast “
Online tributes, including from actor Josh Gadd, who called Reiner “one of the best comical minds of all time,” and writer Bill Kristol, who said, “What a life!” Actor Alan Alda tweeted: “His talent will last for a long time, but the loss of his kindness and decency leaves a void in our hearts.”
The films he directed included “Oh, God!” starring George Burns and John Denver; “All of Me” with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy “Where’s Daddy?” He was especially proud of his books, including “Enter Laughing,” an autobiographical novel that was later adapted into a movie and Broadway show; and “My Anecdotal Life,” a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, “I Remember Me.”
But many remember Reiner for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” one of the most popular television series of all time and a model of ensemble performance, physical comedy, and timeless, kind wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer who works for a demanding and eccentric boss (Reiner) and who lives with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in his first major television role) and young son in the New Rochelle suburbs. , New York.
The show, which lasted five seasons on CBS, was a great success. Reiner ended up playing the pompous boss, Alan Brady. But the rest of the show reflected his life. In fact, Mary Tyler Moore’s Laura Petrie was inspired by the real-life woman Reiner went to her house every night.
As a young GI during World War II, he met Estelle Lebost, an artist eight years his senior. “He was extremely handsome,” Estelle told CBS News in 2007.
“The Van Dyke show is probably the most exciting of my accomplishments because it was very, very personal,” Reiner once said. “It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show.”
Reiner is the father of actor and director Rob Reiner. The youngest Reiner played Archie Bunker’s son-in-law in “All in the Family” and directed such films as “When Harry Met Sally …” and “The Princess Bride.” Carl Reiner would praise Rob as his favorite director, and Rob would speak with open admiration and some concern about his famous father.
“He was the kindest man, a decent man, an intelligent and talented man, and everyone liked him,” Rob Reiner told The Associated Press in 1992.
Rob Reiner said in a tweet Tuesday that “his heart is aching. It was my guiding light.”
Carl Reiner won multiple Emmy Awards for his work on television. In 2000, he received the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor. When the sound system failed at the start of the ceremonies, Reiner shouted from the balcony, “Does anyone have four double-A batteries?”
In addition to “All of Me,” Reiner directed Martin on “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” “The Man With Two Brains,” and “The Jerk.”
Carl Reiner was born in 1922, in New York City, the Bronx, to one of the two children of Jewish immigrants: Irving Reiner, a watchmaker, and his wife, Bessie. He grew up in a working class neighborhood, where he learned to imitate voices and tell jokes. After high school, Reiner attended drama school, then joined a small theater group.
“It was a fabulous experience, but I was not making money from it,” he told the Akron Beacon Journal in 1963. “One day I was optimistic, after all, the public was paying 22 to 88 cents for admission. I demanded that I They settled for $ 1 per performance and I … became their most expensive actor. “
During World War II, Reiner joined the Army and toured the bases of the South Pacific on GI variety shows for a year and a half. Returning out of uniform, he landed multiple roles on stage, reaching Broadway in “Call Me Mister.”
He married his wife, Estelle, in 1943. In addition to son Rob, the couple had another son, Lucas, a film director, and a daughter, Sylvia, a psychoanalyst and author. Estelle Reiner, who died in 2008, had a small but memorable role in Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally …” as the woman who listens to Meg Ryan’s ersatz ecstasy at a restaurant and says, “I’ll have what’s having “.
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