“The King of Queens” cast, including stars Leah Remini and Kevin James, virtually reunited to celebrate the sitcom’s 25th anniversary, which included a special remembrance of the late Jerry Stiller.
Stars including Gary Valentine, Victor Williams and Patton Oswalt joined Remini and James for a table read and Q&A session in a video uploaded to Remini’s YouTube channel on Tuesday.
The show’s co-creator and executive producer Michael Weithorn called it “very bittersweet” to reunite without Stiller, who died in May 2020 at age 92.
“He was the soul of the show in a very real way,” Weithorn said. “He grounded us. He was a veteran who I think on camera and off camera really had a history and a professionalism that I think we all fed off of and made the show just grow deeper. He lived a long, full life, but nevertheless, no matter how good a life and long a life somebody leads, when they’re gone you really feel the loss. It’s sort of surreal that they don’t exist anymore.”
He continued: “We can’t go to New York and stop in and see Jerry on Riverside Drive and say, ‘How you doing?’ It’s really … he was a beautiful, beautiful man, and he was responsible for the fact that we’re all here doing this right now. It never would’ve happened without him.”
Remini, who played the show’s lead Carrie, recalled Stiller being “the dad” of the show on-and-off screen. He portrayed Carrie’s father, Arthur, who often poked fun at his son-in-law Doug (James).
“Jerry could’ve been in the first scene and they said, ‘It’s okay for you to go. You don’t have to stay all night while we’re filming,’ and he would stay,” Remini remembered. “Jerry knew that most people who came to the show wanted to meet Jerry. They’d get our picture and sign the script and they’d be like, ‘Is Jerry here? Is Jerry here?’ Because he talked to everybody.”
“He would just talk to you because he just loved people and he was so gracious in that way. It was just that he was that guy that was willing to tell you many stories,” she added.
James, who has become a meme in recent weeks, remembered Stiller always “cared so much” about everyone on set. For example, James recalled, Stiller once nursed him back to health when he felt sick during filming.
He remembered Stiller asking him to “lay down” and “lift up your shirt” so that he could place his warmed-up hands on his stomach.
“I thought it was going to be one of those things where he moves your stomach around and then leaves. He was there for an uncomfortably long, very long time, where he’s just looking right in my eyes and I didn’t know what to do,” James jokingly recalled.
“I’m just kinda looking at him and, honestly, a minute went by where nothing was said and his hands were hot and then he pulls them off and I don’t know if it was placebo or I just wanted him off of me, but I instantly felt better and was able to do the show.”
James added, “He wanted to be there because he cared — as soon as he heard, he didn’t care about the doctors or anybody else. He wanted to be there for [me]. I miss him so much. He’s just the greatest. Like Ben [Stiller’s son] said… ‘A lot of people see him how he acts.’ He’s always the cranky old man yelling and screaming, but it was never the way he was. He was an angel. He was a great man.”
