Best Known As: Creator of TV's The Dick Van Dyke Show
Carl Reiner is the writer and producer who created the hit show The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), in which he played Dick Van Dyke's tyrannical boss, Alan Brady. Before that Reiner had made a name for himself on the New York stage and in Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (1950-54) and Caesar's Hour (1954-57), where he won two Emmy awards for his work as a comic actor. Reiner has had success in feature films also, directing comedies including Enter Laughing (1966-67, based on his autobiographical book and starring Alan Arkin), Oh, God (1977) and four movies with Steve Martin: The Jerk (1979), Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man With Two Brains (1983) and All of Me (1984). Reiner is also known for his long-running comedy routine with Mel Brooks, "The 2,000 Year-Old Man," (winner of a 1998 Grammy), and for his occasional appearances on television and in the movies, including the role of Saul Bloom, the elderly confidence man of Steve Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven movies (co-starring George Clooney and Don Cheadle). In 2004 he lent his voice to the CGI-animated TV series Family of the Pride.
The Dick Van Dyke Show was set in New Rochelle, New York... Reiner's son Rob Reiner is a former TV star (All in the Family, 1971-78) and the director of several movies, including This is Spinal Tap (1984) and A Few Good Men (1992).
(born March 20, 1922, Bronx, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. actor, writer, director, and producer. He acted on the stage before appearing with Sid Caesar in the television comedy series Your Show of Shows (1950 – 54). He created and produced The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 – 66), for which he won several Emmy Awards. His novel Enter Laughing (1958) was adapted as a play (1963) and a movie (1967). He directed film comedies such as Where's Poppa (1970), Oh, God! (1977), and Fatal Instinct (1993). His son Rob Reiner (b. 1945) acted in various television series, including All in the Family (1971 – 78), and became a director of note.
Born: Mar 20, 1922 in Bronx, New York City, New York
Occupation: Writer, Actor, Director
Active: '60s, '80s, 2000s
Major Genres: Comedy
Career Highlights: Oh, God!, The One and Only, Where's Poppa?
First Major Screen Credit: Caesar's Hour: Season 01 (1954)
Biography
Carl Reiner knew he wanted to be an actor -- preferably a Shakespearean actor -- from the time he was wearing knee pants. Trained in New York's Works Progress Administration Dramatic Workshop, he spent the war years touring with Maurice Evans' G.I. Hamlet, appearing with another young hopeful, Howard Morris. After the war he accumulated scores of stock company and Broadway credits, then in 1948 made his television debut in the short-lived series Fashion Story. While starring in NBC's 54th Street Revue, he was hired as one of the regulars on Your Show of Shows, appearing on a weekly basis with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, and old pal Howie Morris. During the scripting sessions for Show of Shows, Reiner became friends with a bombastic staff writer named Mel Brooks, with whom he improvised a number of wild stream-of-consciousness comedy bits which would eventually crystallize as the classic "2000 Year Old Man" routines. An Emmy winner for his work on the various Sid Caesar programs, he entered films as a character actor in 1959. That same year, he wrote, produced, and starred in the pilot episode for a proposed series about a comedy writer named Rob Petrie, titled Head of the Family. The network executives liked the concept, but vetoed Reiner as the star; swallowing his pride, he retooled the property with another leading man, and that's how the Emmy-winning Dick Van Dyke Show was born. During the series' five-year run, Reiner made innumerable cameo appearances on the program, most memorably as Rob Petrie's mercurial TV-comedian boss Alan Brady. In 1967 he made his film directorial debut with Enter Laughing, an adaptation of his own semi-autobiographical 1958 novel (the book had already been transformed into a Broadway play with Alan Arkin as star). Reiner's later directing assignments included The Comic (1967), a bittersweet farce based on the lives of Stan Laurel, Harry Langdon, and Buster Keaton; the black comedy cult favorite Where's Poppa? (1970); the whimsical fantasy Oh, God (1977); and a popular series of Steve Martin vehicles, among them The Jerk (1978) and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). His film output decreased in number and quality in the l980s and 1990s, though critics enjoyed his offbeat 1989 working-class comedy Bert Rigby, You're a Fool and his 1997 Bette Midler starrer That Old Feeling. In 1995, he earned yet another Emmy award for his revival of the Alan Brady character on a memorable episode of TV's Mad About You. Carl Reiner is the father of directors Rob Reiner and Lucas Reiner; his wife Estelle has enjoyed a latter-day career as a night club singer and as a cameo performer in her son Rob's films (she's the lady who says, "I'll have what she's having!" in When Harry Met Sally). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In 1959, Reiner developed a television pilot, Head of the Family, based on his experience on the Caesar shows. However, the network didn't like Reiner in the lead role. In 1961, the recast and retitled show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, became a hit. In addition to usually writing the show, Reiner occasionally appeared as temperamental show host "Alan Brady," who ruthlessly browbeats his brother-in-law (played by Richard Deacon). The show ran from 1961 to 1966. In 1966, he co-starred in the Norman Jewison film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.
Reiner began his directing career on the Van Dyke show. After that show ended its run, Reiner's first film feature was an adaptation of Joseph Stein's play Enter Laughing (1967), which in turn was based on Reiner's semi-autobiographical 1958 novel of the same name. Balancing writing, directing, producing and acting, Reiner has wide worked on a range of movies and television programs. Probably the best-known films of his early directing career were the cult comedy Where's Poppa? (1970), starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon, and Oh, God! (1977) with George Burns.
Reiner has also written a number of books, including memoirs like 2004's My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir, and novels like 2006's NNNNN: A Novel. In American Film, Reiner expressed his philosophy on writing comedy thus:
"You have to imagine yourself as not somebody very special but somebody very ordinary. If you imagine yourself as somebody really normal and if it makes you laugh, it's going to make everybody laugh. If you think of yourself as something very special, you'll end up a pedant and a bore." He continued: "If you start thinking about what's funny, you won't be funny, actually. It's like walking. How do you walk? If you start thinking about it, you'll trip."
Reiner guest starred as a clinic patient on the season finale of the hit FOX series House MD on May 11, 2009. He also lent his voice to the character of Santa Claus in the NBC Christmas special Merry Madagascar in November 2009.
Personal life
On December 24, 1943, Reiner married singer Estelle Lebost. The two were married 64 years until her death in 2008. At the time of the marriage he was 21 and she was 29. Estelle is probably best remembered for her one line — "I'll have what she's having" — in the deli scene in their son Rob's 1989 hit, When Harry Met Sally.[1] She died on October 25, 2008, at age 94.[5]
Reiner is the father of actor-turned-director, Rob Reiner, (b. 1947), poet, playwright and author Sylvia Anne (Annie) Reiner (b. 1957) and painter,[6] actor, director Lucas Reiner (b. 1960).[1][7]
Reiner, who was raised Jewish and remains proud of his Jewish cultural heritage, has described himself as a Jewish atheist.[8] He says that "man invented God, not the other way around."
Bibliography
Books by Carl Reiner
The 2000 Year Old Man Goes To School, Mel Brooks & Carl Reiner, 2005 ISBN 0-060-76676-X
The 2,000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000:The Book, Cliff Street (New York City), 1997 ISBN 0-060-92992-8
All Kinds of Love (novel), Carol Publishing (Secaucus, NJ), 1993 ISBN 1-559-72163-4
