Showing posts with label Jerry Stiller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerry Stiller. Show all posts

May 19, 2020

"They had a sketch where they hated each other. And they would just talk about how much they hated each other."

"And my sister overheard, and really thought that they hated each other. And then, another time, hearing them arguing and thinking it was rehearsing a sketch, and it wasn’t. So that was part of the energy in the household. They were very different people, but they were so, so devoted to each other. A very beautiful and imperfect relationship, as every relationship is. And so that was our life. And it was part of all of it for us."

From "How Ben Stiller Will Remember His Father/The actor and director on growing up with famous comedians as parents and how his father, Jerry Stiller, saw his son’s career" (The New Yorker).

May 11, 2020

"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” — has died. He was 92... 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'.... 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. His most noteworthy characteristic was his explosive, often irrational anger, and most of the episodes on which he was featured found him, sooner or later, yelling.... Growing up in Brooklyn and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, young Jerry was inspired to perform by seeing Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante in person...  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 NYT obituary for the great Jerry Stiller.