CARL REINER

(20 March 1922 - 29 June 2020)

The American actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer and director Carl Reiner, who has died at the age of 98, spent a lifetime making people laugh. Born to Jewish immigrant parents in New York City, young Carl became interested in theatre from an early age. During war service he was hospitalised with pneumonia, after which he trained as a French interpreter at Georgetown University where he began directing plays. He subsequently toured overseas with the Special Services entertainment unit until 1946. New York then beckoned and he played Broadway, securing the lead in the Harold Rome revue Call Me Mister. Television followed in 1950 with Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour, working with Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and others. More television comedy found him alongside George Burns and Gracie Allen, with Mel Brooks on The Steve Allen Show, and with Dinah Shore, Dick Van Dyke, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Carol Burnett, Larry Sanders and many others, either as an actor or writer or as both.

Reiner’s first feature film as an actor was Happy Anniversary (1959), a comedy with David Niven and Mitzi Gaynor. Then he did The Gazebo with Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds, had three roles in The Thrill of It All with Doris Day, appeared in Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! and The End directed by Burt Reynolds, plus countless others including Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen and The Majestic with Jim Carrey. In Toy Story 4 and on the Forky Asks a Question TV series he voiced the role of Carl Reinereoceros. His last acting appearance was in Saddle Up! which is still in pre-production.

Reiner began directing films in 1969 with Enter Laughing (based on his own novel), then came The Comic with Dick Van Dyke, Where’s Poppa? with George Segal, Oh, God! with George Burns and The One and Only with Henry Winkler. He then made several films with Steve Martin, namely The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me. He continued to direct films until his last, That Old Feeling in 1997 with Bette Midler. Reiner often appeared in the films he wrote, produced or directed. Writing and appearing with Mel Brooks he wrote their famous monologue 'The 2000 Year Old Man' which appeared as a book, an album and a short film. Like much of his output Reiner wrote what is essentially New York Jewish humour, along with the likes of Sid Caesar, Neil Simon, Woody Allen and, of course, Mel Brooks. They were responsible for creating the tone of American humour on television, influencing the likes of Soap, The Golden Girls, Rhoda and Frasier etc. Carl Reiner was the recipient of many awards including Primetime Emmys, American Comedy Awards, Directors Guild of America, MT Movie & TV Awards, The Writers Guild of America and a Grammy Award with Mel Brooks for The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000. Carl Reiner married the jazz singer Estelle Lebost in 1943. She died in 2008 but not before achieving lasting fame in her son Rob Reiner’s film When Harry Met Sally... by uttering the famous line: “I’ll have what she’s having.” The Reiners have three children, the poet and playwright Annie, the actor-director Lucas, and the  actor-writer-producer-director Rob Reiner. Carl Reiner’s first autobiography, My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir, was published in 2003. It was followed by a further seven memoirs and a dozen other books. A long and very busy life indeed.

MICHAEL DARVELL