Jerry Stiller — widely beloved ‘Seinfeld’ comedian
Jerry Stiller, a classically trained actor who became a comedy star twice — in the 1960s in partnership with his wife, Anne Meara, and in the 1990s with a memorable recurring role on “Seinfeld” — died Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
His death was announced Monday on Twitter by his son, actor Ben Stiller, who said he died of natural causes.
Stiller’s accomplishments as an actor were considerable. He appeared on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s frantic farce “The Ritz” in 1975 and David Rabe’s dark drama “Hurlyburly” in 1984. Off Broadway, he was in “The Threepenny Opera”; in Central Park, he played Shakespearean clowns for Joseph Papp; onscreen, he was seen as, among other things, a police detective in the original “The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three” (1974) and Divine’s husband in John Waters’ “Hairspray” (1988). But he was best known as a comedian.
The team of Stiller and Meara was for many years a familiar presence in nightclubs, on television variety and talk shows, and in radio and television commercials, most memorably for Blue Nun wine and Amalgamated Bank.
Years after the act broke up, Stiller captured a new generation of fans as Frank Costanza, the shorttempered and not entirely sane father of Jason Alexander’s George, on the NBC series “Seinfeld,” one of the most successful television comedies of all time.
Stiller was in fewer than 30 of the 180 episodes of “Seinfeld,” whose nine seasons began in 1989, and he did not make his first appearance until the fifth season. But he was an essential part of the show’s enduring appeal. He was nominated for an Emmy in 1997.
Frank Costanza was a classic sitcom eccentric whose many dubious accomplishments included marketing a brassiere for men and creating Festivus, a winter holiday “for the rest of us” celebrated with tests of strength and other bizarre rituals.
His most noteworthy characteristic was his explosive, often irrational anger, and most of the episodes on which he was featured found him, sooner or later, yelling, usually at either his son; his wife, Estelle, played by Estelle Harris; or both.
Just a few months after the final episode of “Seinfeld” (in which Frank had one last moment in the spotlight and, of course, spent most of it yelling), broadcast on May 14, 1998, Stiller was back on television playing another offkilter father on another sitcom, “The King of Queens,” which made its debut that fall on CBS.
A regular this time, he played Arthur Spooner, the excitable father of the wife (Leah Remini) of the workingslob central character (Kevin James), for the show’s entire nineseason run.
Stiller and Meara met in 1953, when they were both struggling actors, and married shortly afterward. They worked together in 1959 with the Compass Players, an improvisational theater group that later evolved into the Second City. They began performing as a duo in New York nightclubs in 1961 and soon made the first of about three dozen appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Visually, Meara and Stiller were a study in contrasts. She was statuesque and brighteyed; he was short and stocky, and always looked a little lost. Another contrast formed the basis for much of their comedy: Her heritage was IrishAmerican and Roman Catholic (although she converted to Judaism in 1961); his was Eastern European and Jewish.
At a time when it was rare for men and women of different religions to date, let alone marry, Stiller and Meara broke new comic ground with their routines about the rocky but loving relationship of Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, characters loosely based on themselves.
The comedy partnership flourished for more than a decade and found a new outlet when they began doing commercials. But they eventually went their separate ways professionally — although they remained happily married and continued to perform together from time to time. Meara died in 2015.
Stiller worked steadily into the early 1990s but was less active than Meara, who had recurring roles on several television shows. Then came the call from “Seinfeld,” and his career resurgence began.
Gerald Isaac Stiller was born in Brooklyn on June 8, 1927, the first of four children of William and Bella (Citron) Stiller. His father, a son of immigrants from Galicia, drove a taxi and later a bus. His mother, who was born in Poland, was a homemaker.
After serving in the Army during and immediately after World War II, he studied theater at Syracuse University under the GI Bill, learning about Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama from the celebrated teacher Sawyer Falk. He began working in summer stock almost immediately after graduating in 1950, and was appearing Off Broadway a few years later.
Stiller remained active throughout his 80s. He was typically manic in a series of commercials for Capital One Bank, seen on television and heard on radio in 2012.
In 2016, he reprised the role of the agent Maury Ballstein in “Zoolander 2,” the sequel to the hit 2001 comedy about a male model, starring and directed by his son, Ben Stiller.
“I’ve never thought of stopping,” Stiller told the Daily News of New York in 2012. “The only time you ever stop working is when they don’t call you.”
In addition to his son, Stiller is survived by his daughter, Amy Stiller, an actress and comedian; a sister, Doreen; and two grandchildren.