Jerry Stiller
Born June 8, 1927 — Died May 11, 2020
Jerry Stiller was an American comedian and actor whose career spanned six decades, encompassing stand-up comedy, Broadway, film, and television. Best known to modern audiences as the explosively irritable Frank Costanza on Seinfeld and Arthur Spooner on The King of Queens, Stiller had earlier been one half of the comedy duo Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara, and was the father of actor Ben Stiller. His gift for portraying barely-contained volcanic rage became one of the most beloved comedic personas in American television history.
Brooklyn Origins and Stiller and Meara
Born Gerald Isaac Stiller on June 8, 1927, in New York City, he grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class Jewish family. After serving in the U.S. Army, he studied at Syracuse University and pursued acting training at the Dramatic Workshop in New York. He met Anne Meara, an Irish Catholic actress from Queens, in 1953 while both were struggling for stage work, and they married in 1954. Their pairing as a comedy duo — trading on their cultural differences, smart-alecky New York sensibility, and genuine chemistry — made them stars of nightclub and television comedy through the 1960s and 1970s.
Stiller and Meara appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show over thirty times and made commercials for Blue Nun wine that became national campaigns. They maintained their marriage while working together and separately for over sixty years until Meara's death in 2015. Their son Ben Stiller became a major comedy film star, and their daughter Amy Stiller is also an actress.
Seinfeld's Frank Costanza
Stiller joined the cast of Seinfeld in 1993 in the recurring role of Frank Costanza, George's hotheaded, irrational father. The character — prone to inexplicable outbursts, ancient grievances, and confrontational non sequiturs — became one of the show's most beloved recurring presences. Stiller replaced the original actor (John Randolph) from the second episode onward and made the role so utterly his own that Frank Costanza became culturally indelible. The invented holiday "Festivus," introduced by Frank in a 1997 episode, entered the cultural lexicon so thoroughly that it is now celebrated annually by millions with "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength."
After Seinfeld ended in 1998, Stiller immediately found another iconic role as Arthur Spooner — the grumpy, scheming father-in-law — in CBS's The King of Queens (1998–2007). The nine-season run gave him his only opportunity to carry a main cast role in a long-running sitcom, and he was consistently the most unpredictable and funny element of the show.
Did You Know?
Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were considered pioneers in bringing the observational Jewish-Irish working-class humor that defined New York comedy to mainstream American television in the 1960s, influencing generations of comedians including their own son Ben, as well as Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, who both cited them as influences.
Legacy
Stiller continued working into his eighties, with film roles in Ben Stiller's Zoolander (2001) and Zoolander 2 (2016), and appeared on The Howard Stern Show and various specials. He published a memoir, Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara , in 2000. He died of natural causes on May 11, 2020, in New York City, aged ninety-two. Ben Stiller's announcement of his death on Twitter drew a massive outpouring of public affection, and tributes from the comedy world were unanimous in describing Stiller as the template for a certain kind of lovably deranged, full-commitment character performance that never grew old no matter how many times it appeared.