Best known for playing the cantankerous Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, this veteran actor has
been a constant presence on film and television screens since the late 1950s. But fans may
still be surprised by how little they know about this TV icon and comedian. This is the
untold truth of Jerry Stiller.
Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were aspiring young actors when they met in 1953. The couple
were married for 61 years, before Meara's passing in 2015 at age 85. Married in 1954,
it wasn't until 1961 that the two would begin working as a comedy duo, using their marriage
as a source of material. Meara told The New York Times in 2008,
"Jerry started us being a comedy team. He always thought I would be a great comedy partner.
At that time in my life, I disdained comedians."
Initially performing in New York City nightclubs, Stiller and Meara became nationally known
within a year, going on to perform numerous times on The Tonight Show and making 36 appearances
on The Ed Sullivan Show.
In a 1977 interview with People, the couple revealed why they decided to put the brakes
on the act around 1970. Stiller explained,
"I love Anne, but if I had depended on her in my professional life, I would have lost
her as a wife."
Meara added:
"I didn't know where the act ended and our marriage began."
"Jerry! What are you doing in here? We're on in 15 seconds!"
In 2007, the husband-and-wife comedy duo were given an iconic Tinseltown honor when they
jointly received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Stiller and Meara received the Walk
of Fame's 2,328th star. In attendance were the couple's children, Ben and Amy Stiller,
along with Seinfeld's Jason Alexander.
The star recognized their success as a comedy team as well as their solo achievements, including
one Emmy nomination for Stiller and four for Meara. Both Stiller and Meara distinguished
themselves as individual performers while reviving their joint comedy act whenever the
opportunity arose, a scenario that actually brought them closer together as a couple.
As Stiller told People in 1977, the innate cultural differences between the two - he
is Jewish, of Austrian-Polish descent; Meara's ancestry is Irish - was central in both their
comedy and their relationship. Stiller said,
"It occurred to us that we were an unlikely couple. If there was any logic to it, we never
would have gotten married in the first place."
The sharp improv skills of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara made them naturals for commercials,
and by 1977 Stiller and Meara had done commercials for everything from office equipment to Jack-in-the-Box
restaurants. Meara told the magazine,
"We sell out with class; we won't do a commercial unless it's funny and the product is decent."
The couple's most successful commercial deal was with Blue Nun wine, which they began plugging
via comedic radio commercials in 1969. According to People, by 1977 they were in the midst
of a three-year contract worth $300,000; during the period the couple recorded commercials
for the brand, sales of Blue Nun rose, quote, "from 90,000 cases a year to over 800,000."
As Ad Age recalled, the commercials benefited from the couple's brilliant ad-libbing, which
resulted in memorable spots that deviated hilariously from their original scripts, usually
a no-no in advertising, but quite appreciated for these radio spots.
Jerry Stiller was a lifelong fan of the New York Knicks, and over the decades had been
a frequent presence at the team's home games in Madison Square Garden.
Stiller and wife Anne Meara joked about his obsession with the team in a scripted comedy
scene they wrote for The New York Times, in which Stiller returns home and asks if she's
recorded the Knicks-Lakers game. "I think so," she answers. Stiller replies: "You think
so! This is a very important game!"
In a 2011 interview with New York Magazine, Stiller revealed he had recently returned
to the Knicks fold after exiling himself from the team for years. He said,
"I really love basketball. But I was off because of that disaster trip they were on for so
many years. It depressed me. But I'm back with Carmelo [Anthony], and I love this guy
[Landry] Fields, who is a great rebounder. There's a new spirit to the team, and I went
to a game the other night for the first time in eight years, and I had more fun that I
could imagine."
Of all his various acting roles, Jerry Stiller will be forever remembered as Frank Costanza,
hotheaded father of Seinfeld's George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander. However, when the
character was first introduced in the sitcom's fourth season, actor John Randolph played
Frank.
As Stiller told The Television Academy, he had been offered the role but had to turn
it down due to a commitment on Broadway, so Randolph was cast instead. A few months later,
he received another offer for Seinfeld. This time he did it, admitting, quote, "I needed
the work."
As Stiller recalled, he was initially instructed to play the character as meek so that he'd
contrast with actress Estelle Harris, playing Frank's loud, always-yelling wife. In rehearsals,
however, Stiller felt it wasn't gelling. One day, out of frustration he changed things
up; when Harris screamed at him, he erupted in anger and yelled back. Everyone loved it,
and the Frank Costanza fans know and love was born.
"Blow out the candles! Blow out the candles! I said blow out the damn candles!"
"Stop it, Frank, you're killing him!"
"Blow out the candles!"
Don't go looking for Randolph's Frank Costanza in reruns, however; so iconic was Stiller's
portrayal, all Randolph's scenes were reshot with Stiller as Frank, and edited into the
episode when it aired in syndication.
One thing that had always puzzled Jerry Stiller was the ethnicity of Seinfeld's Costanza clan.
Costanza is certainly a name with an Italian flair, yet the family appeared to be Jewish.
Stiller joked about the disparity during a 2008 performance at Cornell University, saying,
"How does a family that eats kasha, knishes and kneidlach have the name Costanza?...I
always tell people we were a Jewish family in the Witness Protection Program."
While neither the Costanzas' ethnicity nor religious affiliation was ever specified,
Frank's greatest enduring achievement transcends both: Festivus, the non-denominational holiday
devoted to gathering one's family together to, quote, "tell them all the ways they have
disappointed you over the past year."
"A new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us."
Long after Seinfeld left the air in 1998, Festivus maintained a foothold in pop culture;
Stiller even wrote the forward for a book celebrating the faux holiday: Festivus: The
Holiday for the Rest of Us, written by journalist Allen Salkin. In Salkin's 2008 piece about
the Festivus phenomenon for The New York Times, Stiller proudly embraced his role as the father
of Festivus, saying,
"I'll take that mantle. I'll wear my crown."
For Jerry Stiller, joining the Seinfeld family proved to be life-changing in many ways. Not
only did it place him firmly in the pop-culture zeitgeist and introduce him to a new generation
who'd never even heard of Stiller and Meara, but Seinfeld also came to be his most rewarding
experience as an actor. Stiller told The Television Academy,
"I'll never forget, on the first day of the shoot in front of the audience, Julia Louis
Dreyfus, Larry [David], Michael Richards, and the whole cast...surrounded me, wishing
me well. And they were rooting for me. They were protecting me from the fear, 'cause this
was something. And from that day on, it was the best years of my life as an actor."
When Jerry Stiller's son, Ben Stiller, became a comedy star in his own right, the younger
Stiller was able to bring his dad onto his projects. In fact, Jerry Stiller appeared
in at least four of his son's films, starting with a role in his 1995 comedy Heavyweights,
in which he appeared alongside Anne Meara.
The elder Stiller next appeared in Zoolander. In the 2001 blockbuster fashion spoof and
its 2016 sequel, the Seinfeld star hilariously portrayed Maury Ballstein, the backstabbing
agent of male model Derek Zoolander. He also appeared in the Ben Stiller-starring 2007
remake of The Heartbreak Kid.
According to Ben Stiller, casting his dad in movies was a no-brainer. In fact, according
to Us Weekly, Ben praised his father as, quote, "the most naturally funny man in the world"
at the 2019 Directors Guild of America Awards.
Jerry Stiller recalled being directed by his son in Zoolander for The New Yorker, admitting
Ben sought perfection. He said,
"Ben was ahead of me, in a lot of ways. Everything I could never do, Ben could do."
In a wide-ranging 2011 interview with New York Magazine, Jerry Stiller and wife Anne
Meara were asked whether they give money to panhandlers in the streets of New York City.
Meara said that they did, and Stiller agreed, explaining that the reason harkened back to
their own experiences in their early years, when they were impoverished struggling actors
scrambling to make a living.
Stiller then recalled a painful experience from his hardscrabble days, when he had no
money whatsoever to get himself back home from an audition. Eager to return to his apartment,
Stiller approached a man he saw browsing at a newsstand. He recalled,
"I asked him, 'Can you give me a nickel to get on the subway,' and he said to me, 'Get
away from me, you bum.' And it's never left me."
Back in 2011, long before Donald Trump had entered the political arena, he was merely
a fast-talking New York City real estate developer and reality TV personality. At the time, Jerry
Stiller and wife Anne Meara had differing - and quite surprising - viewpoints about
the man who would go on to become America's 45th president.
Speaking with New York Magazine, Meara insisted she wasn't a fan, saying, quote,"I don't like
him. I think he's a greedy man."
Stiller disagreed, saying, quote, "I'm not going to say that at all", revealing Trump
had hired the couple to perform, quote, "when we were flat on our back."
Stiller also recalled once being seated next to Trump at an event. During their conversation,
Stiller was impressed that Trump,
"talked like a real guy...I like him because I know just what he is: a showman. He's a
bit of a guy that wants to be in show business. I don't mind his hair; I think it's all part
of the show. But then the other thing he said to me once, which I'll never forget, he said,
'I like your son.' For that I love him."
A health scare at 91
In January 2019, Jerry Stiller made headlines when a health scare put him in the hospital.
Radar Online was the first to report the news, claiming the actor - then 91 years of age
- had experienced, quote, "stroke-like symptoms," and categorized his condition as "serious."
However, follow-up reports were much less dire. A friend of the family shared with Us
Weekly:
"Jerry is fine. He had no signs of a stroke. He's 91 - he had an episode and they took
him to the hospital to be checked out. He's completely fine and is resting comfortably.
He should be home in a couple of days."
A lifelong New Yorker, Jerry Stiller lived in the same apartment in Manhattan's Upper
West Side for more than five decades. He told New York Magazine,
"We've been in our apartment since the day Ben was born."
Stiller and Meara had previously been living in Washington Heights, north of Harlem, and
decided that a more prestigious address would be advantageous to their burgeoning showbiz
career. He explained,
"We got a deal, when we moved in here we were paying $220 a month and today this apartment
is a co-op and the price is out of range of any normal person."
Stiller told West Side Rag in 2016,
"I had just enough money to put down one month's rent and one month's deposit because we were
still struggling back then...We used to have block parties here. The camaraderie was incredible.
There was no air between us, I'll use that expression. It was so wonderful here that
you didn't want to leave. Real people live on the west side."
Jerry Stiller passed away on May 11th, 2020, at the age of 92.