Jerry Stiller Dies of Natural Causes at age 92

[stevearino]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/us/je...ses/index.html

[PhoenixAcres]

RIP Jerry Stiller

[AMackII]

He’ll Be Missed. Anne Meara can finally see him in heaven now.

[MA]

[jbjr56]

Very funny gentlemen. He will be missed.

[MA]

'Seinfeld’, ‘The King Of Queens’ Casts Honor Jerry Stiller: Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kevin James, Leah Remini, Estelle Harris Pay Tribute

https://deadline.com/2020/05/jerry-s...ni-1202931282/

[D-Dey]

Originally Posted by AMackII

He’ll Be Missed. Anne Meara can finally see him in heaven now.

I used to want to see him and Anne Meara as I.H. Chanticleer and Margery Chanticleer in a remake of "You're a Big Boy Now," until she died.

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Jerry Stiller was always the funniest guy in the room, from Seinfeld to The King of Queens

Stiller's death at age 92 prompted many to regard his Frank Costanza as one of Seinfeld's funniest characters, if not the funniest, generating more laughs per minute than Jerry Seinfeld. "It’s rare to watch a scene with the great Jerry Stiller, who just passed away at the age of 92, without thinking, Yeah, that’s the funniest guy in the room," says Miles Klee. "Yet where comedic talent may easily become a path to vanity or domineering style, this was never the case for Stiller, who turned his hot-tempered humor into generosity: He fed a jolting electricity to his co-stars, who then raised their own game. One of his secrets, I suspect — at least in his beloved elder statesman roles as the irascible Arther Spooner and Festivus-celebrating Frank Costanza on The King of Queens and Seinfeld — was never cutting up as a clown while playing the grumpy sitcom dad. Instead, he inhabited them as volatile old men who behaved according to a totally serious inner logic. Stiller had a stone poker face, and he didn’t let you see that he aimed to make you laugh." Klee adds: "We can thank Jerry Stiller, then, for being a model of hilarity who did not insist on his own greatness, nor others’ smallness. He merely stepped into his opportunities and made them count, fully believing in whatever gag it was, and that the joke lands best if it doesn’t sound like a joke at all. This, it turns out, is what made him the funniest guy in the room: leaving us the space to react."

ALSO:

• Jerry Stiller was one of the finest yellers in sitcom history: "I mean that as the highest of compliments: As long as you’re not the one being yelled at, yelling is an inherently funny act, but there are some people who have a special gift for yelling, who can raise their voice in a way that is hilarious regardless of what it is they are yelling about," says Jen Chaney. "That was Jerry Stiller." Chaney adds: "Many Americans know Stiller best for his work as Frank Costanza, the perpetually aggrieved father of George Costanza on Seinfeld. Before you say, 'Wait, he also played Arthur Spooner on King of Queens,' yes, that is true. But that’s a part that he probably would not have been offered if he hadn’t first walked around in Frank Costanza’s shoes — shoes that, for the record, Frank would never remove, not even when he went in a swimming pool...By all accounts, Stiller was a kind and gentle man, which makes the fury that Frank regularly unleashed at his son George, and others, that much more impressive. He got to show that side of himself for the first time in season five’s 'The Sniffing Accountant.' 'You can look for sneakers the next day!' he screams at George after his son complains that his whole afternoon will be ruined because his father got him a job interview for a position as a bra salesman. Stiller is brilliant in the whole scene, actually, not only when he’s losing his sh*t."
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus remembers when she lost it filming a Seinfeld scene with Jerry Stiller: "The truth is that this happened all the time with Jerry Stiller," she tweeted of their famous blooper. "He was so funny and such a dear human being. We loved him. RIP Jerry Stiller."
• Jerry Seinfeld poses with a Stiller & Meara album, tweets: "Jerry Stiller's comedy will live forever"
• Celebrities pay tribute to Jerry Stiller, from Ricky Gervais to Hank Azaria
• Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander recently discussed Jerry Stiller's Seinfeld blooper on Instagram Live
• Seinfeld executive producer George Shapiro: "There was no one sweeter than Jerry. He was a joy to work with and brought countless laughs to the set of Seinfeld."
• How Frank Costanza was born: "I was not the first father on Seinfeld," Stiller said in a 2005 Esquire interview. "There was another father, whom I replaced. I was out of work at the time. My manager had retired. I was close to seventy years old and I had nowhere to go. I get this chance on Seinfeld. I hadn’t even seen the show. The idea was for Estelle Harris, who was the screamer, to be the boss lady of the Costanza family. And I was supposed to be her Thurberesque husband. The part called for me to wear a bald wig to look like George and to act very meek. But after a couple of days I realized that acting meek was going to get me fired just like the last guy. On the fourth day, I said to Larry David, 'This ain’t workin’. Can I do it my way?'"
• Jerry Stiller's greatest Seinfeld moments include Festivus, Serenity Now and Frank vs. George Steinbrenner
• Ranking Stiller's Top 5 Seinfeld episodes
• Jerry Stiller's Stiller & Meara comedy with Anne Meara deserves to be remembered as much as Frank Costanza
• Recalling Stiller & Meara's many TV appearances, including Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and 16 times on The Ed Sullivan Show
• Jimmy Kimmel recalls roasting Jerry Stiller: "My first roast was of Jerry Stiller on Comedy Central," Kimmel tweeted. "After the show, he sent me a lovely letter that I will keep forever. Jerry was a brilliant actor and a particularly kind man. I am sorry Ben - best to you and your family."
• Watch the Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller from 1999

Jerry Stiller dies: The Seinfeld, The King of Queens and Stiller & Meara star was 92

Ben Stiller announced the news of his father's death in a tweet early Monday morning. "I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes," he tweeted. "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." During a decades-long comedy career, Jerry Stiller was best known for playing the cranky and combustible Frank Costanza on 26 episodes of Seinfeld, a role that earned him his only Emmy nomination. Jerry Stiller replaced another actor, John Randolph, in the role, and was told by co-creator Larry David to play Frank Costanza as "very meek" opposite his high-pitched wife, played by Estelle Harris. But Jerry Stiller didn't, however, think that was the right approach for Frank Costanza. “For about three days, we did that same sort of thing, and I felt more and more restricted," he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Finally, before we were supposed to shoot, I just took it upon myself. When (a hysterical) Estelle said, ‘You’re the one who ruined (George's) life, you were never there for him, you were a lousy role model, you weren’t a father,’ I (returned fire) out of desperation, ‘You’re the one who killed him off, you slept in bed with him, you made him sandwiches, you never treated him like a real object.’ And the place broke up!” Long before Seinfeld, Jerry Stiller and wife Anne Meara, who died in 2015, formed the comedy team Stiller & Meara. "While Stiller was 5-foot-4 and Jewish, Meara was lanky, two inches taller and an Irish-American who was raised Catholic. Needing a comedy bit as a stint on The Ed Sullivan Show loomed, Stiller decided to use their dissimilarities for what would become their signature routine, playing the characters Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle," explains The Hollywood Reporter's Mike Barnes. Immediately after Seinfeld, Stiller starred on The King of Queens, from 1998 to 2007, playing Arthur Spooner, the irascible basement-dwelling father of Leah Remini's character and father-in-law of Kevin James' Doug. In recent years, Stiller lent his voice to the Disney Channel series Fish Hooks and played a judge on The Good Wife.

[MA]

The Stars We Lost in 2020: Jerry Stiller, Little Richard, Kobe Bryant, and More

https://www.tvguide.com/galleries/ce...NLS-04-10aaa2i

[Bonniegirl]

Sad to hear of his passing ! Funny man! But now he is with his beloved wife Anne in heaven. They were really a great couple !

RIP !

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Seinfeld's Frank Costanza was the perfect example of how Jerry Stiller could transform even a stock character into someone unforgettable

"Every time Stiller appeared in a production, no matter how small his part was, he stuck out," says David Sims. "Before Seinfeld, the actor was best known for his comedic double-act Stiller and Meara with his wife of 60 years, Anne Meara; their improv stylings were a fixture on variety TV in the ’60s and ’70s. His Broadway career included Shakespeare and the acidic 1984 comedy Hurlyburly, and he channeled gritty humanity in his occasional film roles, including the steadfast Lieutenant Rico Patrone in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the sweetly encouraging father figure in John Waters’s Hairspray."

ALSO:

• Stiller's Frank Costanza first appeared halfway through the series and in 26 of 180 episodes, yet he was an indelible part of Seinfeld
• In Stiller, the rage of Jewish fathers found a hilarious outlet
• Stiller's King of Queens character Arthur Spooner also was beloved

[MA]

From the blog:

https://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2020/...nfeld.html?m=1

[TMC]

Jason Alexander pens a tribute to Seinfeld dad Jerry Stiller

"There is a cautionary adage that suggests you should never work with people you really admire for fear they will disappoint you," Alexander writes in The New York Times. "Even before I met Jerry, I admired him; it was hard not to feel affection for him even without knowing him. There was something about him that was relatable and lovable and it shone in everything he had ever done." Alexander recalled Stiller joining Seinfeld in Season 4. "I remember sitting a few seats from him for the table reading, unabashedly thrilled he was there," Alexander wrote. "From that first reading, it was clear that he and Estelle Harris, who played his wife, were magic. It was equally clear that working with them without constantly dissolving into laughter was going to be challenging. The internet is filled with blooper after blooper of all of us doing scenes with Jerry Stiller, unable to hold it together — mostly due to that glorious, hang-dog, put-upon face that would contort in frustration and madness and the spontaneous, unexpected line readings that would come from him. But he didn’t even have to speak — all he had to do was look or gesture at us, and we’d come apart. And every time he’d apologize for it. As if he had done something wrong. As if he had somehow interfered with our work. Which only made us love him more." ALSO: Larry David says he was "blessed" to work with Stiller on Seinfeld, while The King of Queens co creator Michael J. Weithorn remembered his work ethic.

Michael Richards joins Instagram to pay tribute to Seinfeld co-star Jerry Stiller

Richard' first Instagram post was a tribute to the late Frank Costanza actor, featuring a picture from the Season 7 episode "The Doll." "Until today, I have avoided social media completely, but I’ve created this account in order to say something, belatedly, about a person I loved," Richards wrote Wednesday evening. "Jerry Stiller was an absolute treasure. I adored him and loved working with him on ‘Seinfeld.’ Watch the pool table scene — that says it all — we could really shoot the ball back and forth and that’s what happened between us throughout the series. He was hilarious and a great friend. He’s a legendary showman and he was always an inspiration to me." As Vulture notes, Richards has mostly stayed out of the limelight since his 2006 Laugh Factory N-word incident.

Jerry Seinfeld: "We never gave Jerry Stiller a note. I never adjusted his performance once"

Seinfeld remembered his Seinfeld co-star Thursday on SiriusXM's What a Joke With Papa & Fortune on SiriusXM. "He had the most amazing comedic stuff that he — we didn't know if he was planning it or it just came out that way, or he couldn't remember the line, or we didn't know what it was, but we did not want to disturb it in any way," Seinfeld said, adding: "I don't know why he did it like that. I don't know why he screamed on that line. It doesn't matter. It's funny," he said. "I am such a dedicated believer in if it's funny, don't touch it. I don't care why it's funny. I don't care what the line was supposed to be. He said it that way, we're doing it that way." ALSO: TBS to pay tribute to Jerry Stiller with Frank Costanza-themed Seinfeld marathon.

Ben Stiller says dad Jerry Stiller would prepare for Seinfeld like he was doing Shakespeare

In an interview with The New Yorker, Ben Stiller recalled his final days with his father, who died last week at age 92. "My sister and I were able to be with him," he said, referring to older sister Amy. "And, just due to the fact that he didn’t have a coronavirus-related illness, and he had been ailing for a while, we were able to be with him, which I’m very, very grateful for." Ben Stiller adds: "It’s so funny, because, when my dad died, I was looking at some old clips of the two of us on Conan, like twenty-five years ago. And I look at myself, like, “What was I thinking? Who is that person?” And I’m remembering that of course I wanted my dad on there with me, because I knew my dad would be funny. And I would dread the talk-show appearances, and it was like cheating to ask him to come and help." Ben Stiller also discussed his dad's fame playing Frank Costanza late in life. "I think Seinfeld really changed his life, because he was at a point in his career where the phone wasn’t really ringing. And he and my mom had really stopped working together," said Ben Stiller. "So, for someone who’s thrived on work and thrived on being funny and having an interaction with an audience, it really changed everything for him. I read in one of the obituaries that he had only done about twenty-five shows in the whole series. And, given the fact that he made such an impact, I hadn’t even realized that. But, I think, more than anything for him, when you see the tributes that the cast members have given to him—he was so loved by those people, because his process was so connected to other actors. He loved working with those actors, and he would prepare like he was doing Shakespeare. He would break it down, a sitcom script, and figure out, 'Why am I saying this? What’s the motivation for this character? What’s his history?' So it came out of him putting everything into it, and not trying to be funny. And yet, of course, it came out so funny because he was just putting everything into it. And it was just like the amalgam of who he was, as a person."

[MA]

Ben Stiller remembers his father, Jerry Stiller: ‘He loved connecting with people’

https://www.today.com/video/ben-stil...le-83851333659

Ben Stiller fondly recalls parents' marriage of 61 years: 'He was devoted to her'

https://www.today.com/popculture/ben...he-was-t182277