Carl Reiner, Multifaceted Master of Comedy, Is Dead at 98

[IceWizard]

Carl Reiner, Multifaceted Master of 
Comedy, Is Dead at 98


Mr. Reiner was a gifted comic actor, but he spent most of 
his career slightly out of the spotlight — writing, directing 
and letting others get the laughs.



Carl Reiner in a 1964 episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” In addition to creating 
and producing the show, Mr. Reiner made occasional appearances as Alan Brady, 
the comedian for whom the Van Dyke character worked.Credit...CBS, via Getty Images


By Robert Berkvist and Peter Keepnews

• June 30, 2020
  

Carl Reiner, who as performer, writer and director earned a place in 
comedy history several times over, died on Monday night at his 
home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 98.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Annie Reiner.

Mr. Reiner first attracted national attention in 1950 as 
Sid Caesar’s multitalented second banana on the television 
variety show “Your Show of Shows,” for which he was also 
a writer. A decade later he created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” 
one of the most celebrated situation comedies in television 
history, and teamed with Mel Brooks on the hugely 
successful “2000 Year Old Man” records. His novel 
“Enter Laughing” became both a hit Broadway play and 
the first of many movies he would direct; among the 
others were four of Steve Martin’s early starring vehicles.

He won praise as an actor as well, with memorable roles in films 
like “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and, 
more recently, “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels. But he spent 
most of his career just slightly out of the spotlight, letting others 
get the laughs.

His contributions were recognized by his peers, by comedy 
aficionados and, in 2000, by the Kennedy Center, which awarded 
him the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was the third 
recipient, after Richard Pryor and Jonathan Winters.

In his performances with Mr. Brooks and before that with 
Mr. Caesar, Mr. Reiner specialized in portraying the voice 
of sanity, a calm presence in a chaotic universe. But 
despite his claim to the contrary, he was never 
“just the straight man.”




From left, Sid Caesar, Nanette Fabray, Mr. Reiner and Howard Morris in a sketch 
on the TV show “Caesar’s Hour” in 1955. Mr. Caesar called Mr. Reiner 
“the best straight man I’ve ever worked with.”
Credit...Associated Press


“He was a comedian himself, and he truly understood and still 
understands comedy,” Mr. Caesar said of Mr. Reiner in his book 
“Caesar’s Hours” (2003), written with Eddy Friedfeld. 
“Most people still don’t realize the importance of a straight man 
in comedy, or how difficult that role is. Carl had to make his 
timing my timing.”

Mr. Reiner was, Mr. Caesar added, “the best straight man 
I’ve ever worked with.”

As part of a stellar supporting cast that also included 
Imogene Coca and Howard Morris, Mr. Reiner proved his 
versatility week after week on “Your Show of Shows,” 
which ran from 1950 to 1954 on NBC and established 
the template for sketch comedy on television. He played 
everything from a harried commuter to a frenzied 
rock ’n’ roller to an unctuous quiz-show host. But he 
is probably best remembered as an interviewer, 
solemnly posing questions to a mad professor, 
a spaced-out jazz musician or some other over-the-top 
character played by Mr. Caesar, and adding to the 
humor simply by being serious.

Mr. Reiner contributed behind the scenes as well. He took 
part in the frenzied writing sessions that shaped the show, 
bouncing jokes off the walls of the writers’ room with the 
likes of Mr. Brooks and Neil Simon.



From left, Jeanne Bal, Mr. Reiner, Imogene Coca and Mr. Caesar in a rehearsal for the 
1958 show “Sid Caesar Invites You.”
Credit...Sam Falk/The New York Times



“I became a writer because of that room,” he recalled. 
“I’d say something and somebody would yell: ‘What do you know? 
You’re not a writer.’ So I became a writer.”

He characterized his later career moves with similar self-effacing 
humor in an NPR interview: “I acted like a director. I acted like a 
producer. I sat in front of a typewriter and acted like a novelist.”

Mr. Reiner’s association with Mr. Caesar encompassed three 
different series: After “Your Show of Shows” the two worked 
together on “Caesar’s Hour,” which had a three-year run 
on NBC, and “Sid Caesar Invites You,” a failed attempt to 
recapture the “Show of Shows” spirit that lasted less than 
one season on ABC in 1958.

The Party Piece


The next phase of Mr. Reiner’s career found him again in the role of deadpan 
interviewer. This time the interviewee was Mr. Brooks.


“The 2000 Year Old Man” began as an act Mr. Reiner and Mr. Brooks 

performed for friends at parties. When they put it on record, it became a 
phenomenon. There were ultimately five “2000 Year Old Man” albums, 
one of which won a Grammy and all of which are treasured by 
comedians and comedy fans.

Mr. Brooks was the star of the largely improvised routines, 
reflecting on what it was like to be two millenniums old 
(none of his thousands of children ever visited) and 
reminiscing about historical figures like Sigmund Freud 
(“He was a good basketball player; very few people know that”) 
and Shakespeare 
(“He had the worst penmanship I ever saw in my life”). 
But it was Mr. Reiner who came up with the questions 
that lit Mr. Brooks’s comedic fuse.

Indeed, it was Mr. Reiner who spontaneously started the 
ball rolling one day during a quiet moment in the Caesar 
writers’ room. “I turned to Mel and I said, ‘Here’s a man 
who was actually seen at the crucifixion 2,000 years ago,’” 
he told The New York Times in 2009, “and his first 
words were ‘Oh, boy.’”



Mr. Reiner with Mel Brooks, as the 2000 Year Old Man, in an undated photo. the 
duo’s albums are treasured by comedians and comedy fans.
Credit...Everett Collection


“I always knew if I threw a question to Mel he could come up 
with something,” Mr. Reiner said. “I learned a long time ago 
that if you can corner a genius comedy brain in panic, you’re 
going to get something extraordinary.”

As Mr. Brooks put it, “I would dig myself into a hole, and 
Carl would not let me climb out.”

In 1960, the same year he and Mr. Brooks made their first album, 
Mr. Reiner wrote and starred in a pilot for a TV series, based on his 
own life, about a writer who works in New York for a larger-than-life, 
difficult-to-please comedian.


The show, “Head of the Family,” was not picked up. It became a series 

only when it was recast with Dick Van Dyke as the central character.


The workplace scenes in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” — 
featuring Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie as 
Mr. Van Dyke’s fellow writers, with Mr. Reiner making 
occasional appearances as their boss, Alan Brady — were 
inspired by Mr. Reiner’s time with Sid Caesar 
(although Mr. Reiner insisted that his character was 
only partly based on Mr. Caesar). 
The domestic scenes, with Mary Tyler Moore as 
Mr. Van Dyke’s wife, were set in New Rochelle, N.Y., 
where Mr. Reiner lived at the time, and Ms. Moore’s 
character was modeled on his wife, Estelle. Mr. Reiner 
later attributed the show’s success to the choice of 
“somebody with more talent to play me.”

Seen on CBS from 1961 until 1966, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” 
won a total of 15 Primetime Emmy Awards for its cast 
and crew, five of them for Mr. Reiner as writer and producer. 
(He won nine Emmys in his career, including 
two for his on-camera work on “Caesar’s Hour,” 
one as a writer on a 1967 special that reunited 
the “Show of Shows” cast and one for a guest 
appearance, as Alan Brady, on an episode of 
the sitcom “Mad About You” in 1995.) 

It is widely regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.



In “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” Carl Reiner (right, with Mary Tyler Moore) starred 
as the overbearing, frequently toupéed TV host Alan Brady. But Reiner actually 
had more in common with Van Dyke’s character, Rob Petrie.
Credit...CBS, via Getty Images


Someone else once again played Mr. Reiner, or a character very 
much like him, on Broadway and in the movies. “Enter Laughing,” 
his autobiographical novel about a stage-struck delivery boy from 
the Bronx who decides to become an actor, was published in 
1958 and adapted for the stage by Joseph Stein, another former 
member of the Caesar writing staff. With Alan Arkin in the lead 
role, it opened in 1963 and ran for more than 400 performances.


From Actor to Director

When “Enter Laughing” was sold to Hollywood, Mr. Reiner shared 
screenwriting credit with Mr. Stein for the 1967 film adaptation, 
starring Reni Santoni. It was Mr. Reiner’s third produced screenplay, 
after “The Thrill of It All” (1963) and “The Art of Love” (1965). 
More important, it was the first film he directed.

That same year he made his Broadway debut as a writer and 
director with “Something Different,” the story of a playwright 
suffering from writer’s block. It received generally good reviews 
(Walter Kerr of The New York Times praised 
Mr. Reiner’s “nifty habit of approaching a gag 
at high speed, passing it on the outside, and 
then noticing where it went in the rearview mirror”) 
and had a respectable three-month run. By that time, however, 
Mr. Reiner’s focus had shifted westward.

He had already appeared in a number of Hollywood movies by the time 
he and his family moved to Beverly Hills in the late 1960s, and he would
continue to show up onscreen occasionally. But for the next three decades, 
most of his work in Hollywood was done behind the scenes.

Carl  Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 20, 1922, to Irving Reiner, 
a watchmaker, and Bessie (Mathias) Reiner. After graduating from 
Evander Childs High School in the Bronx, he went to work as a machinist’s 
helper and seemed headed for a career repairing sewing machines.

Then one day his older brother, Charlie, mentioned seeing a newspaper 
article about a free acting class being given by the 
Works Progress Administration, the New Deal jobs agency. Carl tried 
his hand at acting, found he was good at it, hung up his machinist’s 
apron and joined a theater troupe. He also acted in summer stock.

During World War II, Mr. Reiner served in an Army entertainment unit 
that toured American bases in the South Pacific. After his discharge 
he joined the road company of the musical revue “Call Me Mister” as 
the comic lead, and within a year he was in the Broadway production.

In the 1949-50 television season he was a regular on “The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue,” 
a variety series, and in 1950 he was back on Broadway in “Alive and Kicking,” 
where he caught the eye of Max Liebman, the mastermind of “Your Show of Shows.”


Mr. Reiner married Estelle Lebost in 1943. She died in 2008.


In addition to his daughter, an author and psychoanalyst, he is survived 
by his sons, Rob, known for directing “When Harry Met Sally,” 
“A Few Good Men,” “This Is Spinal Tap” and numerous other films and 
for his role as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law on the groundbreaking sitcom 
“All in the Family,” and Lucas, a painter and filmmaker;  and five grandchildren.

‘The Jerk’ and Beyond


Mr. Reiner’s first major box-office success as a director was “Oh, God!” (1977), 
starring George Burns as a very down-to-earth deity and John Denver as the 
man he chooses to spread his message. Two years later he teamed with 
Steve Martin, then at the height of his fame as a comedian, for what 
proved to be a mutually rewarding collaboration.

Mr. Reiner first directed Mr. Martin in “The Jerk” (1979), a film largely 
inspired by Mr. Martin’s manic stand-up act. The critical response was 
lukewarm, but the movie was a box-office smash and now often shows 
up on lists of the best American comedies.



Steve Martin and Mr. Reiner in 1979. “The Jerk,” the first of four movies Mr. Reiner 
directed that starred Mr. Martin, often shows up on lists of the best American comedies.
Credit...Associated Press


“The Jerk,” “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” (1982), “The Man With Two Brains” 
(1983) and “All of Me” (1984) defined Mr. Martin’s onscreen persona as a 
lovable goofball and made him a movie star. They also established Mr. Reiner 
as an imaginative director — especially “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” 
a black-and-white spoof of film noir set in the 1940s, in which he integrated 
vintage clips featuring actors like Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck 
into the action.

On Monday, Mr. Martin praised Mr. Reiner on Twitter as “my greatest 
mentor in movies and in life.”

Mr. Reiner returned to Broadway twice after moving west, but 
neither visit was triumphant. In 1972 he directed 
“Tough to Get Help,” a comedy by Steve Gordon about a black 
couple working in an ostensibly liberal white household, which 
was savaged by the critics and closed after one performance. 
In 1980 he staged “The Roast,” by Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, 
two writers he had worked with on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” 
That play, about a group of comedians who expose their darker 
instincts when they gather to roast a colleague, ran for less than a week



Mr. Reiner in 2002. He was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor 
by the Kennedy Center in 2000.
Credit...Ric Francis/Associated Press


The movies he directed after he stopped working with Mr. Martin — 
among them “Summer Rental” (1985), with John Candy, and 
“Sibling Rivalry” (1990), with Kirstie Alley and Bill Pullman — did 
only somewhat better. In his 70s, he decided that filmmaking 
demanded “just too much energy.” He gave it up after making 
“That Old Feeling” (1997), with Bette Midler and Dennis Farina.

But he remained active in front of the camera, notably as a crook 
lured out of retirement by the prospect of sharing in the loot from 
a Las Vegas casino robbery in Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 remake 
of the Frank Sinatra caper film “Ocean’s Eleven.” 
He reprised the role in “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) and 
“Ocean’s Thirteen” (2007).

On television he had recurring roles on the sitcoms “Hot in Cleveland” 
and “Two and a Half Men” and guest-starred on “Parks and Recreation,” 
“House” and other series. He also did voice-over work for several 
cartoon shows.

Mr. Reiner wrote a number of books in addition to “Enter Laughing,” 
including novels, children’s books and several memoirs, among them 
“My Anecdotal Life” (2003), “I Remember Me” (2013) and 
“Too Busy to Die” (2017). His daughter said another book would 
be published soon.

In 2017 he was prominently featured in “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” 
a documentary about people who remained active into their 90s. And in his last 
years he maintained an active Twitter account, which he used primarily for 
political commentary.


A photo showing Mr. Reiner, Mr. Brooks and Annie Reiner wearing 

“Black Lives Matter” T-shirts, taken on Mr. Brooks’s birthday, was posted 
on Twitter this week.

Toward the end of “I Remember Me,” Mr. Reiner said a friend of his had 
recently asked if he had thought about retiring. Noting that his role on 
“Hot in Cleveland” gave him “the opportunity to kiss
 Betty White — thrice — and on the lips,” he offered a succinct response:

“Retire? I may be old, but I am not crazy!”




Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.