Reiner was giant of TV comedy
When a comic giant departs this world for bookings unknown, the usual thing to say or write is: Where do you start?
With Carl Reiner, it’s different. Across 98 years, his life and career in comedy generated such a stunning amount of high-grade laughs — high, medium and low — with him, it’s more like: Where do you finish?
Born in the Bronx, he died of natural causes Monday evening in Beverly Hills. That certainly sounds final. But from here, right now, an endpoint to this man’s influence eludes normal human eyesight. Reiner, a versatile and protean engineer of laughter, did a tremendous amount to activate and energize the second half of 20th century American entertainment, while staying sharp and relevant well into the 21st.
He adored cheap jokes and sly, subtle ones. He was a better actor than people tend to remember. He remained a gratifying public presence, mostly on Twitter, right up until his last day on Earth when he took aim, mournfully, one more time, at what he called the “bankrupted and corrupt businessman” in the White House.
To Reiner, comedy was serious business. He enjoyed many lucky collaborators, from Sid Caesar to Mel Brooks to Steve Martin to his starry Ocean’s 11/12/13 ensemble cohorts. That’s a huge chunk of popular culture right there. And that’s why there may be no end to Reiner’s merry legacy.
For some of us, Reiner’s work first came to us in reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the sterling showcase he built for himself, under the title Head of the Family, to play Rob Petrie. That didn’t work out. But it did with Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie, all under Reiner’s inspired stewardship.
The Dick Van Dyke Show aired between 1961 and 1966 before entering syndication, bringing a new level of sophistication and wit to situation comedy. Reiner got his performer’s licks in, too, portraying the Caesar-like Alan Brady, overbearing, insecure, obsessed with his toupees. Reiner based the role and the series on his experiences working with Caesar on Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour in the 1950s.
His parents, Bessie Mathias and Irving Reiner, were Romanian Jewish and Austrian Jewish immigrants, respectively. Reiner’s own story followed an arc of many well-known figures of 20th century popular entertainment: He was a Second World War veteran, eventually in the special services branch, entertaining the troops in Guam and Iwo Jima. After the war, Reiner worked on Broadway, then in television, his big break coming when producer Max Liebman needed a straight man for Caesar and Your Show of Shows in 1950.
Reiner’s status was cemented when with Mel Brooks in the classic 2,000-Year-Old Man routine, and later as a director of the hits Oh, God! or The Jerk or All of Me.
Two of his greatest colleagues, Brooks and Dick Van Dyke, are now 94. They know, as well as anybody, just how much this easygoing titan brought to the party that is the American comic spirit, in all its spritz.