Carl Reiner garnered many accolades during his eight decades in show business, from nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy to the Mark Twain Award for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The multi-screenplay comedy teacher, who died June 29 at age 98, also claimed another prestigious tribute: his name on the menu at Pink’s venerable Hot Dogs stand in Los Angeles on La Brea Avenue. The Reiner dog is a 9-inch stretchy dog with mustard and sauerkraut. As fate would have it, a Reiner dog proved to be the last meal of its namesake.
“It was her favorite food: a hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut and a side of baked beans,” said George Shapiro, producer and manager who was a nephew of Reiner’s wife, Estelle Reiner (Shapiro’s mother was Estelle’s older sister. ).
On June 29, Reiner had been in a good mood all day. That night he spent time at his Beverly Hills home watching “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” and other shows with his dear friend and collaborator Mel Brooks. Around 10 p.m., Reiner was leaving his television room with the help of a housekeeper when he stumbled.
“It didn’t fall too hard. It was a soft buckling on my knees, ”Shapiro said. Minutes later, Reiner passed out. “It came out in three minutes,” he said. “He did not suffer. Everyone wants to go that way. “
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Most importantly, Shapiro said, Reiner had been determined to tell his family and close friends in recent days how much they meant to him and how happy he was with his remarkable life. Reiner was immensely proud of his three children, Rob, Annie and Lucas, all of whom followed his father in the industry, and the loving family he built on 64 years of marriage to Estelle, who died in 2008.
“She was able to tell Rob just a few days ago how she had accomplished everything she ever wanted by having a great family and the great creativity she had been a part of in her career,” Shapiro said. “He was a happy man.”
Reiner’s 70-year friendship with Brooks, the comedy legend he met while working for Sid Caesar on “Your Show of Shows” in the early 1950s, was as strong as ever during Reiner’s last year. The two had remembered in recent days about the act of working for Caesar and NBC in the early days of television in New York.
“What they did was incredible: 90-minute live shows, 39 shows a year,” says Shapiro, who produced the 2017 HBO documentary “If You’re Not on the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” with Reiner, Brooks and other actors. from Hollywood. nonagenarians
Until the end, Reiner also became involved with social media, using his Twitter feed to frequently condemn President Donald Trump and weigh in on social issues. He was proud to have made a statement by donning a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt alongside Brooks and daughter Annie Reiner for a photo that went viral after Shapiro tweeted it on June 28.
For the past year or so, Brooks and other family members have spent their afternoons with Reiner at their Beverly Hills home. It will be difficult to break that habit, Shapiro admitted.
Mel was there last night. It will keep it that way for a while, ”he joked.
The loss of the writer-director-producer and performer behind “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and so many other hits is huge for Reiner’s close friends and family. But from Shapiro’s point of view, there is also a joyous feeling that the artist whose first memorable novel was titled “Enter Laughing” came out of the corporeal world with a full heart and a satisfied mind.
“The sad part is that you feel sorry for yourself because we are going to miss you,” Shapiro said. “The good thing is that he was able to celebrate his life and had the opportunity to go the way he wanted.”
(In the picture: Carl Reiner and George Shapiro)
