Jerry Stiller

Gerald Isaac Stiller was born on June 8, 1927, at Unity Hospital in New York City, the eldest of four children of Bella (née Citron) and William Stiller, a taxi and bus driver. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Galicia, in what is now southeast Poland and western Ukraine, and his mother was born in Frampol, in modern-day eastern Poland. Stiller grew up in the Williamsburg and East New York neighborhoods of Brooklyn before his family relocated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he attended Seward Park High School. Following military service in the U.S. Army during World War II, he enrolled at Syracuse University and earned a bachelor's degree in Speech and Drama in 1950, later continuing his training at HB Studio in Greenwich Village.

Stiller's stage career began in earnest in 1953, when he appeared in a Phoenix Theater production of Coriolanus produced by John Houseman. Houseman later wrote in his 1980 memoir Front and Center that Stiller, alongside Gene Saks and Jack Klugman, formed "the best trio of Shakespearian clowns that I have ever seen on any stage." His Broadway career spanned more than four decades, from 1954 to 1997, and included productions such as The Three Sisters, Three Men on a Horse, Hurlyburly, Passion, and What's Wrong With This Picture?, among others.

Also in 1953, Stiller met actress and comedian Anne Meara in an agent's office, and the two married in 1954. Together they formed the comedy duo Stiller and Meara, which became a prominent fixture on television variety programming throughout the 1960s, with frequent appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1959, the pair joined The Compass Players, a St. Louis improv company directed by David Shepherd. By 1961 they were performing in New York City nightclubs, and within a year the New York Times had described them as a national phenomenon. In 1970, they disbanded the live act. They subsequently built a career in radio, including a notable advertising campaign for Blue Nun wine and a syndicated five-minute sketch comedy program, Take Five with Stiller and Meara, which ran from 1977 to 1978. From 1979 to 1982, the duo hosted HBO Sneak Previews, a monthly half-hour program. In 1986, they starred in The Stiller and Meara Show, a television sitcom in which Stiller played the deputy mayor of New York City.

Late in his career, Stiller experienced a significant resurgence when he was cast as Frank Costanza, the short-tempered father of George Costanza, on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. He held the role from 1993 to 1998. The character as originally conceived was described as meek, and Stiller wore a bald cap during early rehearsals before persuading co-creator Larry David to allow him to reinterpret the role in a manner closer to the version audiences came to know. His performance earned him a 1997 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series and an American Comedy Award for Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series in 1998. Following Seinfeld, Stiller joined the CBS comedy series The King of Queens at the request of star Kevin James, playing Arthur Spooner, the father of Carrie Heffernan, from 1998 to 2007. Stiller later said the role tested his acting ability more than any other he had undertaken.

Beyond television, Stiller appeared in numerous films, including Hairspray in both its 1988 and 2007 versions, Secret of the Andes, and Zoolander. He appeared alongside his son, actor Ben Stiller, in several films, among them Hot Pursuit, Heavyweights, The Heartbreak Kid, Zoolander, and Zoolander 2. He also contributed voice work to The Lion King 1½ and Planes: Fire and Rescue. In 2004, Stiller appeared in filmed skits for Canadian rock band Rush's 30th Anniversary Tour concerts, footage later included on the band's 2005 DVD R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour, and he made additional cameo appearances in concert films from the band's 2007–08 Snakes & Arrows Tour. On February 9, 2007, Stiller and Meara were jointly honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

As an author, Stiller wrote a memoir titled Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara, published by Simon & Schuster, and contributed the foreword to Allen Salkin's 2005 book Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us, which examined the fictional holiday associated with his Seinfeld character.

Stiller and Meara had two children: actress Amy Stiller, born in 1961, and actor and comedian Ben Stiller, born in 1965. The couple remained married for over 60 years until Anne Meara's death on May 23, 2015. Jerry Stiller died from natural causes on May 11, 2020, at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 92 years old.