Anne Meara

Anne Meara
	;
Name:	Anne Meara
Born:	September 20, 1929
Died:	May 23, 2015 (age 85)
Place of death:	Manhattan, New York City
Occupation:	actress
Years active:	1954-2015
Known for:	being the mother of Ben Stiller and the wife of Jerry Stiller

Anne Meara (b. September 20, 1929 - d. May 23, 2015) was an American actress and comedian. Along with her husband Jerry Stiller, she was one-half of a prominent 1960s comedy team Stiller and Meara. She was also featured on stage, television, in numerous films and later became a playwright.

During her career, Meara was nominated for four Emmy Awards and a Tony Award, and won a Writers Guild Award as a co-writer for the TV movie, The Other Woman. She was the mother of actors Amy and Ben Stiller.

Early Years[]

Meara was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of parents of Irish decent, Mary (nee Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara, a lawyer. She was raised in Rockville Center in Long Island, New York and was an only child. Her mother committed suicide when she was 11.

When she was 18, Meara spent a year studying acting at the Dramatic Workshop at The New School in Manhattan. The following year, 1948, she began her career as an actress in summer stock.

Career[]

Comedy Team[]

Meara met actor-comedian Jerry Stiller in 1953 and they married he following year. Until he suggested it, she had never thought of comedy. "Jerry started us as a comedy team", she said. "He always thought I would be great comedy partner". They joined the improvisational company The Compass Players (which later became The Second City) and after leaving, formed the comedy team of Stiller of Meara. In 1961, they were performing in nightclubs in New York and by the following year were considered a "national phenomenon" said The New York Times.

Their often improvised-comedy routines brought many of their real-life relationship foibles to live audiences. Their skits focused on domestic themes, as did Nichols and Mary, another comedy team during that period. "They were Nichols and Mary without the acid and with warmth," notes author Lawrence Epstein. They also added a new twists to their comedy act, he adds, by sometimes playing up the fact that Stiller was Jewish and Meara was Catholic. After Nichols and Mary broke up as a team in 1961, Stiller and Meara were the number one couple comedy team by the late 1960s, and as Mike Nichols and Elaine May were not married, Stiller and Meara became the most famous married couple comedy team since Burns and Allen.

After some years honing their act, Stiller and Meara became regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show, with 36 appearances, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. They released their first LP in 1963, Pleasing America's New Comedy Sensation: Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara Live at The Hungry I, which became a hit. By 1970, however, they broke up their act because it was affecting their marriage "I didn't know where the act ended and our marriage began", complained Meara in 1977, Stiller agreed, fearing "I would have lost her as a wife".

Television, Stage, Film and Video[]

During the 1970s, Meara and Stiller wrote and performed many radio commercials together for Blue Nun Wine. Shehad a recurring role on the sitcom Rhoda as airline stewardess Sally Gallagher, one of the title character's best friends, she also had a small role as "Mrs Curry" opposite Laurence Olivier in The Boys from Brazil (1978). In 1975, she stared in her own series Kate McShane on CBS, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, but the series was cancelled after only ten episodes. She also provided voiceover work for the silent film sketches on Sesame Street.

Meara costarred with the late Carroll O'Connor and Martin Balsam in the early 1980s hit sitcom Archie Bunker's Place, which was a continuation of the influential 1970s sitcom All in the Family. She player the role of Veronica Rooney, the bar's cook, for the show's first three seasons (1979-1982). During that time, she acted in the movie Fame (1982), in which she played English teacher Elizabeth Sherwood. She also played as the grandmother in the TV series ALF in the late 1980s. Her own 1986 sitcom, The Stiller and Meara Show, in which Stiller played the deputy Mayor of New York City and Meara portrayed his wife; a television commercial actress, was unsuccessful.

Meara also made appearances on Sesame Street's Israeli counterpart, Shalom Sesame.

Staring in October 2010, Meara and her husband Jerry Stiller began starring in a Yahoo! web series called Stiller & Meara produced by Red Hour Digital, a production company owned by their son Ben Stiller.

She accepted a role in the Off-Broadway play Love, Loss and What I Wore for April 27 through May 29 2011, run with Conchata Ferrell, AnnaLynne McCord, Minka Kelly and B. Smith. She continued actively developed the next generation as demonstrated by teaching a technique and scene study class at HB Studio up until her death.

Writing and Consulting[]

In 1995, Meara branched out to writing with the comedy, After-Play, after which became an Off-Broadway production. In her later years she portrayed recurring roles on the television shows Sex and the City (as Mary Brady) and The King of Queens *as Veronica Olchin) During 2004-05 season series run, she appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

She was the consultant director of J.A.P. - The Jewish America Princess of Comedy, a 2007 Off-Broadway production that featured live stand-up routines by four female Jewish comedians juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s: Totie Fields, Jean Caroll, Pearl Williams, Betty Walker and Belle Barth.

In 2009, Meara wrote her personal life reflections in an New York-focused online blog, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood -- New York City Stories. In it, Meara recalled her mother's death and her childhood experiences at Catholic boarding school.

Personal Life and Death[]

Although Meara was raised as a Roman Catholic, she converted to Reform Judaism six years after marrying Stiller. She insisted that she did not convert at Stiller's request, explaning, "Catholicism was dead to me." She took her conversion seriously and studied the Jewish faith in such depth that her Jewish-born husband quipped, "Being married to Anne has made me more Jewish". They discussed how they met and their early career during a guest appearance on the TV game show What's My Line? in 1968.

With husband Jerry Stiller, Meara had two children, Amy (born 1961) and Ben (born 1965) who both became actors.

Meara died on May 23, 2015 at the age of 85 due to natural causes. She is survived by her husband, Jerry, who died on May 11, 2020. She is also survived by her two children and her two grandchildren.