Carl Reiner (1922-2020)

[Schmo]

All the way to 98.
https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/ca...ke-1234694208/

[PhoenixAcres]

Wow, sad to hear. He lived a long life and brought joy to millions.

RIP Carl Reiner

[Zoneboy]

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/c...ke-1234694208/


Carl Reiner, the writer, producer, director and actor who was part of Sid Caesar’s legendary team and went on to create “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and direct several hit films, has died. He was 98.

He died of natural causes on Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills, his assistant Judy Nagy confirmed to Variety.

Reiner, the father of filmmaker and activist Rob Reiner, was the winner of nine Emmy awards, including five for “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” His most popular films as a director included “Oh God,” starring George Burns, in 1977; “The Jerk,” with Steve Martin, in 1979; and “All of Me,” with Martin and Lily Tomlin, in 1984.

In his later years, Reiner was an elder statesman of comedy, revered and respected for his versatility as a performer and multi-hyphenate. He was also adept at social media. He maintained a lively presence on Twitter up until the last day of his life. He was vocal in his opposition to President Donald Trump.



Reiner remained in the public eye well into his 80s and 90s with roles in the popular “Ocean’s Eleven” trio of films and on TV with recurring roles on sitcoms “Two and a Half Men” and “Hot in Cleveland.” He also did voice work for shows including “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” “King of the Hill,” and “Bob’s Burgers.”

In 2017, Carl Reiner, his longtime friend and frequent comedy partner Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Kirk Douglas and other nonagenarian Hollywood legends were featured in the HBO documentary “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” examining the secrets to longevity in a fickle industry.


Reiner first came to prominence as a regular cast member of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” for which he won two Emmys in 1956 and 1957 in the supporting category. He met Brooks during his time with Caesar. The two went on to have a long-running friendship and comedy partnership through the recurring “2000 Year Old Man” sketches.

Before creating CBS hit “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” on which he sometimes appeared, Reiner and “Show of Shows” writer Mel Brooks worked up an elongated skit in which Reiner played straight man-interviewer to Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man”; a 1961 recording of the skit was an immediate hit and spawned several sequels, the last of which, 1998’s “The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000,” won the pair a Grammy.

Producer-director Max Liebman, who cast him in the 1950 Broadway show “Alive and Kicking,” also hired Reiner as the emcee and a performer on NBC’s comedy/variety program “Your Show of Shows.”

Reiner then freelanced as a panel show emcee on “Keep Talking,” as a TV guest star and in featured film roles in “The Gazebo,” “Happy Anniversary” and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” Reiner’s 1958 novel “Enter Laughing,” loosely based on his own experiences, was optioned for the stage by producer David Merrick. Reiner did a legit adaptation in 1963 and then directed the film version in 1967, marking his motion picture directing debut.


For Broadway he wrote and directed the farce “Something Different,” which ran for a few months in 1967-68; helmed “Tough to Get Help” in 1972; penned the book for the musical “So Long, 174th Street,” which had a very brief run in 1976; and directed “The Roast” in 1980.

In 1961 Reiner drew on his experiences with Caesar to create and produced “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” a ratings cornerstone for CBS for the next five years. Reiner made guest appearances as the irascible variety show host Alan Brady. The show won Emmys for writing its first three years and for producing its last two. In 1967, Reiner picked up another Emmy for his writing in a reunion variety show with Caesar, Coca and Morris.

Though the “Enter Laughing” movie was modestly received, Reiner continued to direct steadily over the next few decades. “Where’s Poppa?,” an offbeat comedy he directed in 1970, became a cult favorite. Similarly, two other Martin vehicles, the gumshoe spoof “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” and “The Man With Two Brains,” found bigger audiences after their release in theaters.

There were also several less-than-successful films, such as 1969’s “The Comic,” to which Reiner also contributed some of the script; two similarly titled mid-’80s misfires, “Summer Rental” and “Summer School”; “Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool”; 1990’s “Sibling Rivalry”; and a 1993 spoof of “Basic Instinct” called “Fatal Instinct.” He also appeared in most of these pics.

While the last film he directed was the 1997 romantic comedy “That Old Feeling,” starring Bette Midler and Dennis Farina, Reiner was an active presence in guest roles on television and in supporting roles in films during the 1990s and 2000s, even as he neared and then surpassed his 90th birthday.

He guested on “Frasier” in 1993; reprised the role of Alan Brady on an episode of “Mad About You” in 1995 and won an Emmy for it; and guested on “Ally McBeal,” “Boston Legal” and “House.”

Bigscreen appearances included 1990’s “The Spirit of ’76,” directed by his son Lucas; “Slums of Beverly Hills” (1998); and all three films in the “Ocean’s Eleven” series.

Born in the Bronx, he graduated from high school at 16 and worked as a machinist while studying acting. After brief stints in summer stock and on the Borscht Belt circuit, he entered the Army during WWII. His acting talents brought him to the attention of Maurice Evans’ special services unit, where Reiner first met future “Show of Shows” cohort Howard Morris. For the remainder of the war he toured South Pacific bases in G.I. revues.

He hit the ground running in New York after the war, landing a part in G.I. revue “Call Me Mister” and in 1948 appeared in the Broadway musical revue “Inside U.S.A.,” starring Beatrice Lillie and Jack Haley. Concurrently he was appearing on television as a fashion photographer in ABC’s “Fashion Story.”

In early 1950, Reiner became part of the storied team working in front of and behind the camera on Caesar’s NBC variety show “Your Show of Shows,” a 90-minute comedy-variety show that aired live on Saturday nights. The writers room was packed with future showbiz legends including Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin and Lucille Kallen.

After “Your Show of Shows” ended in 1954, Reiner and series regular Howard Morris moved on with Caesar to star in another NBC variety show, “Caesar’s Hour,” which ran on NBC from 1954 to 1957. When Reiner decided to shepherd his own sitcom, he teamed with producers Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard to produce “Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Van Dyke was the fourth partner in the production company Calvada, which has long maintained ownership of the classic comedy. “Dick Van Dyke Show” featured Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob and Laura Petrie, a version of Reiner and his wife Estelle living in the suburbs of New Rochelle while Reiner commuted to Manhattan to work on Caesar’s shows.

In 1995 Reiner received the Writers Guild’s Laurel Award, a lifetime achievement award for a career in TV writing. In 2000 he won the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center. In 2009 he was presented with the WGA’s Valentine Davies Award, recognizing both his writing legacy and valued service to the guild, the entertainment industry and community at large.

Reiner’s wife Estelle, to whom he had been married since 1943, died in 2008. In addition to Rob Reiner, survivors include his daughter Sylvia Anne and son Lucas.

[Zoneboy]

Schmo's post wasn't there when I started mine. It took forever to edit and by the time I finished I saw that he had gotten his in first. Feel free to delete mine.

[OH Nuts!]

R.I.P.

[PhoenixAcres]

Originally Posted by Zoneboy

Schmo's post wasn't there when I started mine. It took forever to edit and by the time I finished I saw that he had gotten his in first. Feel free to delete mine.

No worries, I just merged the threads

[GentlemanJim]

I'm sure that part of it was just because I was an impressionable kid at the time, but for some reason the character "Alan Brady" that he played stuck in my psyche as the true person, so everytime I saw him in other roles,....I tended to see him as "the big boss".

He was a tremendous contribution to the entertainment world

[AB]

Rest in peace.

[80sTrivia]

So sad to hear of his passing. He left an unforgettable legacy...

[TMC]

Dick Van Dyke pays tribute to Carl Reiner

"My idol, Carl Reiner, wrote about the human comedy," Van Dyke tweeted of The Dick Van Dyke Show creator, who died last night at age 98. "He had a deeper understanding of the human condition, than I think even he was aware of. Kind, gentle, compassionate, empathetic and wise. His scripts were never just funny, they always had something to say about us."

ALSO:

• Carl Reiner's death ends one of the most important and impactful careers in television history: "Few figures loom as large in pop culture history as Carl Reiner, the way he crafted jokes, scripts, films—everything he created was hilarious," says Brett White. "Of everything he accomplished in his 60 year career, A lot is going to be written about The Dick Van Dyke Show—and rightly so. What Carl Reiner contributed to television, just with that show alone, is immeasurable. The leap forward for television comedy, sitcoms in particular, that Reiner navigated and executed cannot be understated. When you watch a sitcom with multi-faceted characters, with natural dialogue, with jokes so sharp yet so real, you’re seeing writers adding bricks to the foundation that Reiner laid when he created The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961. If I Love Lucy was Chuck Berry, then The Dick Van Dyke Show was The Beatles."
• Reiner was ahead of his time with female representation in his fictional writers' room: "A reminder that The Alan Brady Show had a writers' room that was one-third female," tweeted former Letterman writer Nell Scovell, creator of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. "It would take until 2017 for the rest of the TV industry to match this. Thank you for the representation, Carl Reiner. Sally was my the patron saint. And thank you to Rose Marie, too."
• Conan O'Brien on the huge impact Reiner had on his life: "Today, I defy anyone to capture the comedic impact of Carl Reiner using mere words. He simply did too much, too well, and all with life-giving good cheer," Conan wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. "Carl was funny about every facet of life, even death, and if he could be with us now he would give a eulogy for himself that would blow the roof off any synagogue, church, or mosque. In dark times Carl Reiner is lasting proof that life is wondrous, funny, and worth the trouble. Good bless you, Carl."
• Reiner's Twitter musings were essential and hilarious until the end: The comedy icon "reached a new generation of fans through his witticisms, amassing 6,520 messages and over 367,000 followers," says William Earl. "Adorably, he revealed that he first started his account to keep up with his grandson": "What a boon twitter is to me. I get to follow and enjoy the thoughtful, incisive comments my grandson Jake Reiner makes daily," Reiner tweeted in 2013.
• Celebrities pay tribute: Alan Alda, Jon Cryer, Sandra Bernhard and more remember Reiner

Mel Brooks remembers his best friend Carl Reiner: "I loved him"

Brooks spent last weekend celebrating his 94th birthday with Reiner. Earlier this year, The Guardian reported on how Brooks would drive to Reiner's house every weeknight so they could watch Jeopardy! together. "Carl was a giant, unmatched in his contributions to entertainment," Brooks wrote in a statement posted to Twitter, remembering Reiner, who died last night at age 98. "He created comedy gems like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jerk, and Where's Poppa? I met him in 1950 when he joined Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows, and we've been best friends ever since. I loved him. When we were doing The 2000 Year Old Man together there was no better straight man in the world. So whether he wrote or performed or he was just your best friend—nobody could do it better. he'll be greatly missed. A tired cliché in times like this, but in Carl Reiner's case it's absolutely true. He will be greatly missed."

[MA]

TJ over on the blog posted a tribute to Carl:

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

[Samme]

The tributes to Carl are tremendous and well worth reading. They show how important and loved he was, and will continue to be. A great person and a great talent.

[Bonniegirl]

Sad to hear of his passing, he was a good guy ! A very cool, fun man , glad he lived a nice long life in good health, he deserved it ! My condolences to his Son Rob and other family !!

[TMC]

Carl Reiner helped define what TV would become

"Carl Reiner invented TV comedy," says James Poniewozik. "I’m overstating things, sure: Reiner, who died Monday at age 98, was one of a group of pioneers who defined the medium in its early years. (Several of them, including Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks, did some of their best work with him.) I’m also understating things: Reiner’s legacy extended to comedy albums and film — he was even a lively presence on Twitter until his last hours on Earth. But Reiner’s acting and writing in television’s early days (Caesar’s Hour, Your Show of Shows) helped define what TV would become. It would be playful, experimental, fast-paced. It would be mouthy and expressive, a medium that blew your lapels back. It would also be self-referential. TV was an eyeball that loved to look at itself. It was a cultural force that was changing us a lot in a little time, reconfiguring home life and routines, rewiring our metabolism and creating an entire industry dedicated to making that little box talk from morning to night. TV brought us the world, and that world was increasingly made by TV. And Reiner’s landmark creation, The Dick Van Dyke Show, which ran for five seasons starting in 1961, was the first great TV sitcom about TV. It wasn’t only that — it was also a sophisticated suburban married-life comedy powered by the how-were-we-ever-so-lucky pairing of Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. But the workplace half of this hybrid, about Rob Petrie’s experiences in the pressure-cooker writers’ room of the fictional Alan Brady Show, set the template for behind-the-cameras comedies including 30 Rock and Moore’s own self-titled show in the 1970s."

ALSO:

• Carl Reiner packed a lot of brilliance into 98 years -- he would've killed on TikTok: "The legendary — sometimes hyperbole is actually insufficient — comic mind passed away on Monday at the age of 98, and I pity every new medium and social platform to come for giving people a place to be funny, but never getting to showcase the varied talents of Carl Reiner," says Daniel Fienberg. He adds: "Reiner was a master of the comedy-variety format back when it ruled the airwaves, writing for and appearing on Sid Caesar classics including Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, where his collaborators included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart, to name just a few. Reiner was a master of recorded comedy, back when that was a phenomenon. His albums with Brooks, and their on-screen collaborations on The Steve Allen Show and even on-stage, are every bit as funny today as they were 60 years ago. You can check out almost any incarnation of 2000 Year Old Man and it will crack you up today. Reiner became a master of the sitcom, creating The Dick Van Dyke Show, a series that — after a slightly bumpy production start — became one of the most influential and career-launching comedies ever produced, letting Reiner cut his teeth as a writer, director and even a supporting actor on one of the most visible platforms imaginable. Reiner became a masterful film director as well. Between 1979 and 1984, he directed The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me, about as astonishing a four-film comic streak as any director has ever had....Nobody should have been surprised that with all of the other things he excelled at, Reiner was tremendous on Twitter, whether showing love and admiration for Brooks, tearing our current president to shreds or repeatedly celebrating The Net. Yes, Reiner seemed to really, really love that 1995 Sandra Bullock cyber-thriller."
• Reiner was ahead of the curve in knowing when to end a TV show: "The Dick Van Dyke Show was cosmopolitan in a way no one had thought of television comedy before, even though it had plenty of room for slapstick (Rob usually tripped over the ottoman in the iconic opening-credits sequence) and other elements of vaudeville," says Alan Sepinwall. "It was also a huge hit, one that set trends (Laura’s capri pants went from scandal to sensation in a hurry) and even merited frequent comparisons between its stars and John and Jackie Kennedy. The show could have gone on forever, but Reiner had produced more than 150 episodes across five seasons, Van Dyke and Moore both wanted to explore other options, and, as Reiner put it in an interview with the TV Academy, 'We all wanted to go out winners. We were offered a lot of money to stay on for another year, but we knew that if we did another year, it’d be slogging.' As a result, Reiner was way ahead of the curve on the idea of ending a great show on his own terms, and of making an intentional series finale. (In the extremely meta 'The Last Chapter,' Rob decides to make a TV show inspired by his work and home lives.)"
• Reiner didn't mind being the "second banana," especially since "the first banana is the greatest banana in the bunch": "On screen, Reiner was most notably a straight man, a supporting player, a maker of cameo appearances, a presence felt, noted, appreciated, but never overbearing," says Robert Lloyd. "For much of his career he was an invisible presence, behind a typewriter or camera, and he brought a similarly light hand to the movies he directed — Where’s Poppa?, Oh God! and four Steve Martin films, including The Jerk and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, which he co-wrote, among them — highlighting the performers and the material without calling attention to the presentation. His own indispensable craft was never the main point."
• Reiner was an enthusiast, the straight man, the anti-Larry David: "In eight decades as a performer, he almost always seemed to be an enthusiast, a playful maker of comedy rather than a sad clown or misanthropic one. (He was, as a public figure, the anti–Larry David.)," says Christopher Bonanos. "His timing was as good as absolutely anyone’s — watch any interview with him; the man could tell a story as well as anyone — and he was generous with it, because as often as not, he played the straight man, setting up other performers to run free. And when he did step into the comic’s role, he killed. Being a great straight man is an underrated skill, because it’s easy to mistake it for merely facilitating some other genius’s jokes. But it requires at least as much dexterity, because you have to (to appropriate the old Wayne Gretzky line) see where the puck is going and skate there, setting up your partner’s lines while also thinking ahead to your next one."
• Reiner never stopped coming up with a good line on Twitter, even in his final weeks of life -- whether funny or melancholy or trenchant: "It does seem odd here, to dwell for a moment on what he was up to in his final days, rather than recite the legendary scope of his career, from Your Show of Shows to his 2,000 Year Old Man routine with (Mel) Brooks, to the toupee jokes on The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the acting, producing, directing, writing and comedy appearances that came for decades on end. The stamina can be startling," says Hank Stuever. "The stamina is the story, along with the laughter. What a gift to laugh as much as he did, and make everyone else laugh too. For the last decade or more, we’ve regarded Reiner and his old friends — these people who directly helped television become its classic best — with a combination of adoration and the awareness that they won’t always be with us. If one of their names starts trending online, for any reason, we all take sharp breath."
• Reiner's death is a punch in the gut because he seemed like one of those pop-culture figures who were supposed to live forever
• Chuck Lorre recalls Reiner's recurring role on Two and a Half Men: “It was an opportunity to watch mastery in action," says Lorre. "And the best part was seeing how much fun he was having playing a wheel-chair bound degenerate. He reminded us all not to take ourselves so damn seriously.”
• Michael Schur remembers writing a 2012 Parks and Recreation episode for Carl Reiner: "Carl saying 'yes' made us feel like we'd been knighted or something — like the emperor of comedy had decreed us worthy of his attention," Schur writes. "I’m not sure if he understood that power he had — though we told him, certainly, when he showed up on the set. We bowed and scraped and genuflected, and in my memory he was lovely and self-effacing and thought we were being a bit silly. But we didn’t care. Adam Scott brought in a movie poster of The Jerk for him to sign. I asked him to tell me stories about The Dick Van Dyke Show, which when I was a kid taught me both what a writers room was and how to make one funny. It also introduced me to Mary Tyler Moore, a crush I never really got over. He told me she was one of the most talented people he’d ever known — I privately noted that he didn’t say 'women,' but “people' — and told me I’d chosen wisely."
• Reiner was on a path to becoming a sewing machine repairman when his brother told him about a free New Deal acting class
• Watch Reiner giving David Letterman Late Night encouragement in 1983: "You're subtle and funny and brilliant but it's going to take time. I only hope there are people who run NBC who are as smart as your audience"
• Steve Martin says "goodbye to my greatest mentor in movies and in life": In a separate tweet, Martin added: "Carl Reiner taught me many things about life, but he also taught me how to turn one slice of toast into two."
• Jerry Seinfeld says "We lost an angel today": "His comedy energy was one of pure joyfulness. It’s an unusual quality in our world and I have always tried to emulate him that way," Seinfeld wrote on Instagram, adding: "When I helped present him with the Mark Twain Prize I said, 'Mark Twain was pretty funny but I think he’d be more excited to receive 'The Carl Reiner Prize’."
• Bryan Cranston: "He was truly a genius and could be the comic or the straight man"
• Jimmy Fallon: Reiner gave me the same pen he gave Johnny Carson
• How to stream Carl Reiner's best work: The Dick Van Dyke Show is available on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Tubi
• Every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, ranked
• Watch CBS Sunday Morning's 2017 joint interview with TV comedy's "Golden Boys": Carl Reiner, Norman Lear and Dick Van Dyke
• Watch Reiner's final interview for the web series Dispatches from Quarantine, posted one week before his death
• See Carl Reiner starring in the CBS pilot Head of the Family, which was rejected and remade as The Dick Van Dyke Show
• Remembering Reiner's best quotes on comedy and show business
• Check out Reiner's 70-year career in photos

TCM to celebrate Carl Reiner's life with a July 28 movie marathon

Turner Classic Movies' tribute to comedy icon Reiner will feature five of his films: Enter Laughing, All of Me, The Comic, Where's Poppa? and Oh, God!

[JamesG]

CBS to Honor Carl Reiner with Colorized "Dick Van Dyke Show" Special
by Rebecca Iannucci
July, 1 2020


In the wake of Carl Reiner‘s death, CBS will pay tribute to the comedy icon with an hourlong, colorized "Dick Van Dyke Show" special.

Airing Friday, July 3 at 8/7c, the special — titled "The Dick Van Dyke Show — Now in Living Color! A Special Tribute to Carl Reiner" — will feature two episodes of the classic sitcom in which Reiner appears.

The episodes are Season 5's “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” and Season 3's “October Eve”. Reiner personally supervised the original colorization of both episodes, which were previously aired in color on CBS in 2016 and 2017.

https://tvline.com/2020/07/01/carl-r...-episodes-cbs/