Jerry Stiller, ‘Seinfeld’s gruff Frank Costanza, dies at 92
Jewish comedian enjoyed long career with wife Anne Meara
Famed Jewish actor Jerry Stiller has died at age 92, his son, actor Ben Stiller, announced Monday on Twitter.
“Sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes. He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad,” wrote the younger Stiller.
Born Gerald Isaac Stiller in New York, Jerry Stiller was best know for his frantic role as George Costanza’s father, Frank, on Seinfeld, and as Arthur Spooner on the series The King of Queens.
He also spent many years working his wife, Anne Meara, in a well-known comedy duo.
Meara died in 2015. They often utilized his Jewish and her Irish ethnicity in their act.
With grandparents immigrating to New York from Galicia and Poland, Stiller was raised the Lower East Side and attended Syracuse University to study drama after serving in the US Army in World War II.
He married Meara in 1954, and they joined a Chicago improvisational comedy company. By the early 1960s, they had set off on their own and became nationally known in the US, thanks to many appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
By the mid-1970s their career had cooled off, but Stiller experienced a resurgence in the early 1990s, playing the short-tempered Frank Costanza, the father of Jason Alexander’s George Costanza in the sitcom Seinfeld. He introduced the faux Christmas holiday Festivus and the phrase “Serenity Now!” into the pop culture lexicon, and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding
Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
“It was never really clear if the Costanzas were Jewish or Italian or what they were,” Stiller said in 2018. “Jason, Estelle [Harris, who played Estelle Costanza] and I were given the name Costanza, which sounds Italian, but there were episodes where I cooked Jewish food and ate knishes and kasha varnishkes in bed.”
Stiller added, “When people asked me about this, I would simply say it was because we were a Jewish family in the witness-protection program.”
After Seinfeld’s run ended, Stiller had planned on retiring, but comedian Kevin James asked him to join the cast of The King of Queens in the role of Arthur Spooner, the father of Carrie Heffernan, which he did from 1998 until 2007.