Navigate to News section

Comedy Legend Anne Meara Dies

Logged 36 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show with husband Jerry Stiller

by
Jas Chana
May 26, 2015
Anne Meara and husband Jerry Stiller in New York City, June 4, 2012. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)
Anne Meara and husband Jerry Stiller in New York City, June 4, 2012. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Actress and comedienne Anne Meara died on Saturday, May 23 in Manhattan. She was 85.

Meara was born in Brooklyn on September 20, 1929, the only child to Edward Meara, a lawyer, and Mary Dempsey, who committed suicide two years before Anne hit her teens. When Meara was 18 she spent a year as part of the New School’s Dramatic Workshop, an experience that ignited her desire for a career in the performing arts.

In 1953, Meara met Jerry Stiller. Reports the Los Angeles Times:

In his 2000 memoir, “Married to Laughter,” Stiller wrote that he took the upset, “angel-faced” young woman to a coffee shop, where she bemoaned the lecherous men of New York.
“A guy started following me down Broadway,” Meara told him. “He must’ve known I was an actress. I had a portfolio and was wearing makeup. When he got real close, he stated saying dirty words. I started to limp, hoping it would turn him off.



“’Keep it up, sweetheart,’ he said. `I love women with afflictions!’”

They married a year later, “but it would be some time before they began working as a team,” reports the New York Times. “The idea, they both agreed, was his; she did not think of herself as a comedian, but because work was scarce she reluctantly agreed.”

“The last thing I wanted was to be a comedienne,” Meara said.

So the duo began performing together as members of the Compass Players, an improvisational troupe that would later form into Second City, Chicago’s famed improv theatre. Soon enough, Stiller and Meara began touring nightclubs across the country and found fast success.

Meara, however, was an seasoned actress in her own right, even at the height of the duo’s popularity. Reports the New York Times:

But even during the act’s heyday, Ms. Meara also pursued a separate career as an actress. She had already amassed an impressive list of stage credits before beginning her comedy career, including an Obie Award-winning performance in “Mädchen in Uniform” in 1955 and roles in several Shakespeare in the Park productions. (She was a witch in “Macbeth” in 1957.)

In fact, Meara found acclaim beyond Stiller and Meara, earning four Emmy Award nominations, and a Writers Guild Award for “The Other Woman,” a 1983 TV movie.

But Meara’s partnership with her husband was everlasting. Here are some highlights of the incredible comedic run, which included 36 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show:

In the 1970s, Meara and Stiller performed a series of commercials for Blue Nun wine. “In a seven-year period,” reports the Los Angeles Times, sales of the wine rocketed from 90,000 cases annually to more than 800,000. Here’s one spot:

As time went on, the couple eventually began to focus on their individual careers, but the duo was reprised in several guest appearances on the sitcom The King of Queens, which began in 1998. In fact, the 2007 finale featured an on-screen marriage between their two characters, a tribute to their enduring real-life relationship, both on-stage and off.

Meara converted to Judaism after six years of marriage to Stiller. In a 1977 People interview, Meara explained that she became a Jew because “I wanted my children to know who they were.” She gave birth to Amy and Ben in 1961 and 1965, respectively. Both have continued her professional lineage by pursuing careers in comedy and acting.

Meara performed alongside her son in an uncredited cameo as a “protestor” in “Zoolander” (2001) and as Debbie in Night at the Museum (2006). Ben Stiller paid tribute to his mother by tweeting:

Thank you so much for all the kind words about Anne. All of us in our family feel so lucky to have had her in our lives.



— Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) May 25, 2015

Stiller and MearaThe Ed Sullivan Show

Jas Chana is a former intern at Tablet.