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Every time Jerry Stiller opened his mouth at “Seinfeld”, he made me laugh.
In part, it was the shock of what came out. Stiller, who died Monday at the age of 92, didn’t speak as much as it erupted. His ruffled bass instantly shifted the energy on the scene, adding ridiculous tension and muted anger that turned deliriously silly. Then there was his masterly comic beat, an old school tattoo rat that went straight to the point. But what really resonated was more personal.
When I was a kid and watched this classic sitcom, I didn’t know New York characters like Jerry Seinfeld, dumb editors like Elaine Benes or whatever Cosmo Kramer was. But Stiller’s Frank Costanza was extremely familiar, with a sense of energy and fashion instantly recognizable by my family’s Florida contingent. He did not remind me of a specific relative, but of everyone screaming at the same time, about the chopped liver.
Stiller, it must be said, had an expansive career that included helping invent an improv comedy with the Compass Players in Chicago; a double act with his wife, Anne Meara; and memorable parental roles in everything from the movie “Hairspray” to the comedy “The King of Queens”. But as is often the case in memories like this, journalists tend to focus on their most famous role. Just as it bothered me that The headlines about Brian Dennehy’s death focused on “Tommy Boy” and “First Blood”, unlike his main performances in plays by Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill, it might irritate you because this essay celebrates a minor role towards the end of his career. If so, I ask you one thing: Kvetch about it, out loud. If there’s one thing to learn from Jerry Stiller in “Seinfeld,” it’s this: volume matters.
Stiller’s biggest episode is probably the one we discovered of his mortified son, George, played by Jason Alexander, who invented a vacation as An alternative to Christmas called Festivus. If there is a common external experience for Jewish children, it is the peculiar alienation felt during the December holidays when they are trapped without Christmas trees and stockings. And while Festivus has entered the popular lexicon, Stiller sets a quirky tone in the episode that sounded like so many Easter Seders. “The Festivus tradition,” he announced, “begins with the issuance of complaints.”
Like many Jewish comics, Stiller is a master of complaints. At Stiller’s Roast at the New York Friar’s Club, Jeff Ross turned to him and said, “His Hebrew name is Yech!”
There is a glorious tradition of Jewish comics that mock their parents and grandparents, particularly the generation that migrated to the United States. Woody Allen, Elaine May, and Larry David have done it, turning these people into screaming cartoons, givers of blame, and neurosis nabobs. These jokes came from the perspective of young people like me, who saw something strange in these beloved family members. They had thick accents, old-world ideas, and fun jobs. He had a grandfather who sold eggs (he was more like Seinfeld’s father than Frank Costanza). And yet we also knew that these elders had it more difficult than we did. They fought in ways that we did not fully understand. They had to rush and scrap. They raised their voices because it was the only way to make themselves heard. And also, well, they were a little deaf.
All of these elements were in Jerry Stiller’s portrait. He was ridiculous but also proud, nervous, and passionate about the dumbest things. His bout with his wife, beautifully portrayed by Estelle Harris, with equal strength and a much louder voice, were formidable but benign fights.
Parental anger can be scary. And comedies have a way of sanding their edges cheaply. But Stiller has a comic rage that was consistently endearing: brave, ineffective with hints of warmth. That was critical. The younger people on the show didn’t shrink as much as they rolled their eyes at his temper. It made you laugh at the things that made our ancestors strange and even embarrassing, but it also reminded us why we love them.
