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It was 5 feet. 5in. and the son of a Jewish bus driver whose grandparents had emigrated to New York to escape the harsh realities of life in Eastern Europe.
She was the only daughter of an Irish Catholic corporate lawyer. Although it was only two inches taller, it seemed to rise above him.
The only thing they had in common was that they were both born in Brooklyn and their families moved as children, theirs in the then sordid Lower East Side of Manhattan, thanks to a $ 5,000 lottery prize and theirs to a tony city of Long Island, where her mother committed suicide when she was 11 years old.
But the love story of weird couple Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara was one of the ages. They were married for over 60 years and both on and off stage had a chemistry that challenged their different backgrounds.
Now they are both gone. Jerry died over the weekend, at age 92, his son, actor Ben Stiller, announced on Twitter. Anne passed away in 2015 at the age of 85.
Jerry Stiller and his wife Anne Meara became the legendary comedy duo known as Stiller and Meara.
Both from Brooklyn, the couple met in 1953 when they were both struggling actors in New York and married in 1954.
They were married in 1954 and parted into one of the longest-running marriages in show business, producing two children, Amy, now 58, and Ben, 54. The family is represented together in 2007 when Jerry and Anne welcome their star. on the Hollywood Walk. Fame
“He was a great father and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years,” said Ben. You will be greatly missed. I love you Papa.’
They met in 1953 when they were both struggling actors in New York. Anne had a meeting with Jerry’s agent. While waiting outside for her own meeting, she left the office crying because the agent had chased her across the desk.
After passing up the opportunity to meet his agent face-to-face, George invited the angel-faced woman for coffee, where he complained about how he hated all New York men because they were lustful, he wrote in his autobiography of 2000 Married. to laughter.
They were married the following year and parted into one of the longest-running marriages in show business, producing two children, Amy, now 58, and Ben, 54.
They did not join professionally immediately. Anne, who had studied with the influential theater teacher Uta Hagen, intended to be a serious Broadway actress. She even won an Obie for her role in the lesbian-themed play Mädchen in Uniform
But Jerry noticed the reaction every time they met new people: “They said to Anne,” Heh, are you married to him?
“I thought we could use it,” he said, so he suggested to his wife that they could do it together, even though he really didn’t think she was funny.
Anne did not like the idea. ‘
At that stage in my life, I disdained comedians, ” he told an interviewer, but continued anyway.
They became an overnight sensation after a 1963 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that left the stone-faced presenter laughing at his act.
Jerry noticed the reaction every time they met new people: “They said to Anne,” Heh, are you married to him? “Due to the height difference. He decided to use that to his comic advantage
They developed their own act of Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, playing with their real-life differences: their intense neuroses and calm personality.
In one sketch, the couple exchanged insults about each other’s friends and ancestors, making it look like a divorce was on the way. It ended with Jerry insulting Anne’s ex as a “full face,” and she affectionately called him “matzo head.”
‘Anne is very mercurial. She moves quickly and makes a decision. Jerry will stop and think, ‘said her friend, Rhoda star Valerie Harper. “But the result is the same: they are committed to making it good.” Neither of them calls him on the phone.
Six years after getting married, Anne converted to Judaism, not because her husband pushed her, but because she said she wanted newborn Amy to have a sense of identity. “I wanted my children to know who they were,” he said.
The couple struggled in New York and with an improvisation group in Chicago before becoming an overnight sensation thanks to a 1963 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. They were invited back dozens of times.
“Ed Sullivan took us to the level we never knew we could reach,” admitted Jerry.
The Sullivan, normally stone-faced, often laughed at his act.
Anne said she never liked Sullivan because it terrified her.
“It scared me a lot,” he told the Los Angeles Times. I was not the only one. There were international favorites from all over the world throwing up on the wings: singers and tenors and boys spinning plates. It was live. We were afraid.’
They finished their double act in 1970 when Anne felt she had to spend more time in New York with her children and less on the road.
‘He was a great father and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. You will be greatly missed. I love you dad, ‘wrote his son Ben about his father’s death on Monday.
They finished their double act in 1970 when Anne felt she had to spend more time in New York with her children and less on the road. It was a relief for both of them.
“I love Anne, but if I had depended on her in my professional life, I would have lost her as a wife,” Jerry told People in 1977.
“I didn’t know where the act ended and our marriage began,” said Anne.
But they appeared together in a series of Blue Nun wine ads in the 1970s. In one, Jerry said, “May I suggest you have a little Blue Nun on your smorgasbord?”
“Oh, I don’t think he was having a very good time,” Anne replied. In addition, they will be all couples.
Blue Nun sales soared from 90,000 boxes a year to more than 800,000.
Anne went to television, as a friend of Harper’s stewardess in Rhoda, and with Carroll O’Connor in the All in the Family Archie Bunker’s Place spin-off.
Jerry was reduced to special appearances on game shows and playing three different characters in episodes of The Love Boat. He felt that his career had surpassed him when he was offered a guest role in Seinfeld in 1993.
Frank Costanza had been written as a gentle and meek man, but when Jerry read the part, he started screaming. Jason Alexander, who played his son George, told Jerry to hit him.
“He didn’t want to, but he encouraged me to really let him have it,” he said in 1996. “I did, and he gave me another big laugh.” And now yelling and hitting are my trademarks.
Stiller is best known for playing George Costanzas’ father, Frank, on NBC’s Seinfeld (pictured with co-stars Estelle Harris and Jason Alexander)
The actor and comedian then portrayed Arthur Spooner in the CBS comedy series The King of Queens alongside Kevin James.
Actor and director Ben Stiller announced the news of his father’s death Monday on Twitter.
Jerry was getting older and often had trouble remembering his lines. Alexander said it worked much better.
“The lines would come back to him in stuttering little steps,” Alexander said. “Then they would come out in stuttering little steps, and what they were seeing was their growing anxiety and frustration with their own memory, which resulted in Frank Costanza’s disdain for the world.”
When Seinfeld ended in 1998, Jerry again attempted to retire, but Kevin James called him to play another eccentric father, Arthur Spooner in King of Queens.
Towards the end, her son Ben reunited his parents again for their latest joint venture, Stiller & Meara: A Show About Everything, a weekly web series on Yahoo, where they discussed everything from Justin Bieber to the Internet.
“I love to improvise with him,” Anne told the Los Angeles Times. “We miss our round trip.”
