Comedian and actor Jerry Stiller, who found stardom alongside his wife, Anne Meara, in the ’50s before winning a new generation of ’90s fans as George Costanza’s explosively unhinged father on “Seinfeld,” has died, his family said Monday. He was 92.
The Brooklyn-born Stiller — father to comedian/actor/director Ben Stiller and actress/comedian Amy Stiller — died of natural causes, according to his son.
“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,” Ben Stiller tweeted early Monday.
Though a supporting player on “Seinfeld,” Stiller produced some of the comedy classic’s most hilarious and indelible moments. His abrasive Frank Costanza character, forever walking a tightrope of simmering rage, famously introduced the phrase “Serenity now!” and the holiday Festivus to the Seinfeld universe, along with the “manzier” — a brassiere for chunky guys.
His accomplishments came without a lot of encouragement on the home front: “When I told my father I wanted to be an actor, he said, ‘Why not a stagehand? You’ll work every night.’ “
But his bus driver dad accidentally imbued his 8-year-old boy with the comedy bug, taking the boy to see the Marx Brothers in the comedy classic “A Night at the Opera.”
Years later, Stiller met Groucho Marx and thanked him.
Stiller, who stood 2 inches shorter than his Irish-Catholic wife Meara, was a man of many talents across a seven-decade career. The couple appeared some three dozen times on “The Ed Sullivan Show” after meeting as Stiller exited his agent’s Manhattan office back in the summer of 1953.
The couple co-starred in a series of ads for the wine Blue Nun. Sales quickly increased by 500%,.
Stiller appeared solo opposite Walter Matthau in the hit 1974 movie thriller “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” and landed a starring role opposite Divine in the John Waters’ breakthrough film “Hairspray.” His myriad television spots included everything from “Murder, She Wrote” to “Law and Order.” And son Ben cast his dad in his 2007 comedy “The Heartbreak Kid.”
The elder Stiller even wrote a 2000 book “Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara,” a memoir about their shared life. The couple, married in 1954, were together for six decades before her death in May 2015 at the age of 85.
On the day when Stiller met Meara, “I took her out for coffee,” he recalled. “She seemed to sense I had no money, so she just ordered coffee. Then she took all the silverware.
“I picked up her check for 10 cents and thought, ‘This is a girl I’d like to hang out with.’ “
And so they did, on and on and on. They first joined a St. Louis comedy improv group called the Compass Players before working as a twosome, making their debut in a Greenwich Village club.
Their first comedy skit collaboration was a bit titled “Jonah,” where Meara played a television news reporter interviewing an older Miami man swallowed by a whale. Success followed quickly for the pair, either in tandem or alone.
They were regulars on “The Paul Lynde Show” in the 1970s, and made a number of guest-starring appearances on “The Love Boat” and “Love, American Style.”
They co-starred Off-Broadway in Meara’s play “After-Play” about two couples discussing their conflicting reviews of a show. And both appeared on some marginal sitcoms: For Stiller, they included “Tattinger’s” — it ran for 14 episodes in 1988 — and “Nick and Hillary,” a sitcom canceled in 1989 after two airings.
Things changed when the call came in 1993 from Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David to replace another actor as George Costanza’s father on the hit show “Seinfeld.”
As scripted, the role called for a meek Stiller to don a bald wig and cower around his loud and domineering wife, Estelle.
On his fourth day on the set, Stiller recalled, he told the show’s co-creator David, “This ain’t working. Can I do it my way?”
David agreed, with Stiller transforming instantly into the bellowing Frank Costanza. “All the cameramen broke out laughing,” recalled Stiller — and a star was reborn.
He stayed on the show through its final season in 1998, earning a 1997 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
Post-“Seinfeld,” he joined comedian Kevin James on the new sitcom “The King of Queens” to play as the star’s loud and loony father-in-law.
Stiller, who had planned to retire after “Seinfeld,” instead returned as irascible Arthur Spooner.
“Any show with Jerry Stiller lending support can’t be all bad,” read a Variety review of the show that ran from 1998-2007.
