Carl Reiner

• Born: March 20, 1922
• Birthplace: Bronx, New York
• Died: June 29, 2020
• Place of death: Beverly Hills, California

Actor, entertainer, and writer

Beginning as a dramatic actor, Reiner found his strength to be in comedy, and he became one of the busiest entertainers in Hollywood, creating The Dick Van Dyke Show and collaborating with funny man Mel Brooks.

Area of achievement: Entertainment

Early Life

Carl Reiner was born at home, in the Bronx borough of New York City, on March 20, 1922, the second son of Bessie Mathias and Irving Reiner, Jewish immigrants from Austria. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a watchmaker and an inventor. When Carl Reiner was sixteen years old, he worked as a machinist’s helper, repairing sewing machines for eight dollars a week. At that time, his older brother read about a free acting class being given by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at a drama school. The WPA was a New Deal program that was designed to put the unemployed back to work. Reiner took the class, and his instructor, Mrs. Whitmore, suggested he audition for Paul Gilmore at the Daily Theater, on Sixty-third Street and Broadway. By the time Reiner was seventeen, he had joined the Gilmore Players and wanted to become a serious dramatic actor. He met his future wife, Estelle Lebost, while both were involved in summer theater at Allaben Acres in New York. While he worked as an actor, she—a singer, an actor, and a visual artist—worked as a stage technician. They were married on December 24, 1943; they had three children, daughter Sylvia Anne and sons Rob and Lucas.

Reiner served in the military from 1943 to 1946 during World War II. A corporal in the Army, he was first trained to be a radio operator, then he was sent to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University to acquire specialized training as a French-language interpreter. He later served as a Teletype operator, but he was transferred to serve under Major Maurice Evans in the Army Entertainment Section. Their troupe was charged with touring the Pacific theater to put on such plays as G.I. Hamlet (1944) and to perform for their fellow servicemen. When the war ended, Reiner traded the military stage for the civilian stage. He found work at a New Hampshire mountain resort, where his responsibilities included emceeing variety shows and performing stand-up comedy. Although he was always a capable actor, it had become evident by this time that comedy was his true calling.

Life’s Work

Reiner may well have been entertainment’s Jewish Renaissance man. He was a stage, film, and television actor, a comedian, a television writer, a screenwriter, a playwright, a novelist, a memoirist, and a film director. He succeeded in balancing a prolific career that included writing, directing, producing, and acting. Following World War II, Reiner accumulated a number of stock company and Broadway stage credits. In 1947, he starred in the touring company of Call Me Mister (1946). In 1948 and 1949, he appeared on Broadway in Inside U.S.A. (1948), and later he performed in Alive and Kicking (1950).

During the late 1940s, television was making its mark on postwar American entertainment. In 1948, Reiner appeared on the television series The Fashion Story. From there he became part of the live, prime-time comedy-variety show The Fifty-fourth Street Revue. In 1950, he was hired away from that show to appear in The Admiral Broadway Revue, which featured the comedy of an unpredictable young comedian named Sid Caesar. That evolved into Caesar’s legendary Your Show of Shows, from 1950 to 1954, and later into Caesar’s Hour, from 1954 to 1957, for which Reiner was both performer and writer. He participated as a performer in numerous skits with Caesar, Imogene Coca, and Howard Morris, among others. Reiner also worked behind the scenes with such writers as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Mel Tolkin. Reiner wrote and produced the award-winning Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966.

His career as a film director included Enter Laughing (1967), The Comic (1969), Where’s Poppa? (1970), Oh God! (1977), The One and Only (1978), The Jerk (1979), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), All of Me (1984), Summer Rental (1985), Summer School (1987), Sibling Rivalry (1990), Fatal Instinct (1993), and That Old Feeling (1997).

His film career as an actor included Happy Anniversary (1959), The Gazebo (1959), Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965), The Art of Love (1965), Don’t Worry, We’ll Think of a Title (1966), The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), A Guide for the Married Man (1967), The Comic (1969), Generation (1969), Oh, God! (1977), The End (1978), The Jerk (1979), Skokie (1981), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), Summer School (1987), The Spirit of ’76 (1990), Fatal Instinct (1993), Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Good Boy! (2003), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007). Most of his acting work in the 2010s occurred in the television medium, including guest appearances on shows such as Two and a Half Men (2009–14), Hot in Cleveland (2010–14), and Angie Tribeca (2018). At the same time, he had a role in the film Dumbbells in 2014 and lent his voice to characters in the animated features Duck Duck Goose in 2018 and Toy Story 4 in 2019.

Among his many honors were seven Emmy Awards and a 1998 Grammy Award for The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000. Reiner was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame for making “outstanding contributions in the arts, sciences, or management of television, based upon either cumulative contributions and achievements or a singular contribution or achievement.” On March 25, 1988, he was the subject of a video archive interview with the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television.

Reiner died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on June 29, 2020, at the age of ninety-eight.

Significance

Reiner embodied the essence of Jewish humor, which was popularized by such noteworthy Jewish film and radio comedians as the Marx brothers, Eddie Cantor, and Jack Benny. From his early work with Caesar during the Golden Age of Television to his later work with Steve Martin, Reiner influenced generations of American comedians. His collaboration with Mel Brooks in creating the comedic persona of the 2000 Year Old Man is possibly the best example of Jewish humor in his repertoire. He proved that a gifted individual could be successful in more than one area of entertainment, by achieving award-winning successes as an actor, an author, a director, and a producer. He then expanded his dramatic and comedic talents to include writing for stage, screen, television, novels, short-story collections, and children’s books. In addition to the memoirs I Remember Me (2012), I Just Remembered (2014), and What I Forgot to Remember (2015), he also published the children's books Tell Me a Scary Story—but Not Too Scary! (2003), Tell Me Another Scary Story—but Not Too Scary! (2009), and Tell Me a Silly Story (2010).

Bibliography

Berkvist, Robert, and Peter Keepnews. "Carl Reiner, Multifaceted Master of Comedy, Is Dead at 98." The New York Times, 6 July 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/arts/television/carl-reiner-dead.html. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.

Brooks, Mel, and Carl Reiner. The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000: The Book. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. This collection displays remarkably funny insight into the workings of two popular comedic minds, that of Reiner and Brooks. The character of the 2000 Year Old Man was created to test the boundaries of their talents by skewering topics as diverse as fad diets, religion, garlic, prunes, taxes, and fried foods.

Nachman, Gerald. Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s. New York: Back Stage Books, 2004. The writer looks at several comedians who became headliners in the 1950s and 1960s, and he includes Reiner in his discussion.

Reiner, Carl. Enter Laughing. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958. Reiner’s semiautobiographical novel describes the experiences of a young man breaking into the difficult world of show business. This book became the subject of a hit Broadway play and a film.

Reiner, Carl. How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Mostly Happy Stories. New York: Cliff Street, 1999. Twelve rich, multidimensional tales filled with nostalgia, poignant memories, and unconstrained humor. Most of them are fictional, although some are based on Reiner’s true-life experiences.

Reiner, Carl. My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003. A collection of Reiner’s autobiographical anecdotes and personal observations.