Anne Meara

Anne Meara (September 20, 1929 – May 23, 2015) was an American actress, comedian, and playwright born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Mary (née Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara, a corporate lawyer for American Standard. Both parents were of Irish descent. Meara grew up as an only child in Rockville Centre, New York, on Long Island. Her mother died by suicide when Meara was eleven years old. At eighteen, she studied acting at the Dramatic Workshop at The New School and at HB Studio in Manhattan under Uta Hagen. She began working as an actress in summer stock in 1948.

Meara met actor and comedian Jerry Stiller in 1953, and the two married shortly afterward. Together they formed the comedy duo Stiller and Meara, first joining the Chicago improvisational company The Compass Players before establishing themselves as a team in New York nightclubs by 1961. The pair became regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show, accumulating 36 appearances, and also performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1963 they released their debut LP, Presenting America's New Comedy Sensation: Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara Live at The Hungry I. By the late 1960s they were regarded as the leading couple comedy team in the country. The duo dissolved their act by 1970, citing the strain it placed on their marriage. Meara and Stiller also wrote and performed radio commercials for Blue Nun Wine during the 1970s and, beginning in October 2010, starred together in a Yahoo! web series called Stiller and Meara, produced by Red Hour Digital.

Meara's Broadway career spanned from 1956 to 1993 and included appearances in Anna Christie, Eastern Standard, Miss Lonelyhearts, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and A Month in the Country. Her work in Eastern Standard earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1993. She made her off-Broadway debut in 1958 in Ulysses in Nighttown, based on the work of James Joyce, and returned to off-Broadway in 2011 in Love, Loss, and What I Wore alongside Conchata Ferrell, AnnaLynne McCord, Minka Kelly, and B. Smith.

On television, Meara starred in her own CBS series, Kate McShane, in 1975, for which she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1976, though the show was canceled after ten episodes. She played recurring character Sally Gallagher on the sitcom Rhoda and portrayed Veronica Rooney, the bar's cook, during the first three seasons of Archie Bunker's Place from 1979 to 1982, appearing alongside Carroll O'Connor and Martin Balsam. She appeared as Dorothy Halligan Deaver in ALF in the late 1980s and guest starred in The King of Queens from 1999 to 2007, first as Mary Finnegan and later as Veronica Olchin. She also held a recurring role in Sex and the City as Mary Brady and appeared in two episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. In the 1970s she provided narration for segments of Sesame Street drawn from silent films. Her film credits include roles in The Boys from Brazil (1978) and Fame (1980). Throughout her career Meara received four Emmy nominations and won a Writers Guild Award as co-writer of the television movie The Other Woman.

As a playwright, Meara wrote the comedy After-Play in 1995, which became an off-Broadway production. In 2009 she contributed personal reflections to the online publication Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, recounting her mother's death and her experiences at Catholic boarding school. Meara was raised Roman Catholic and converted to Judaism six years after marrying Stiller. The couple had two children, Amy and Ben Stiller, who became an actor, director, and producer. On February 9, 2007, Meara and Jerry Stiller received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7018 Hollywood Boulevard. Meara died on May 23, 2015, in Manhattan at the age of 85, following several strokes, while residing at the Hebrew Home for the Aged.