'Seinfeld' actor Jerry Stiller dead

Best-known for his roles on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and the CBS comedy series The King of Queens, Stiller "was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years," the younger Stiller wrote on Twitter. He died of natural causes.

Jerry Stiller began his career alongside wife Anne Meara in the 1950s and four decades later gained fame for his role as the short-tempered father of George Costanza on the television show Seinfeld. He also appeared in the CBS comedy series The King of Queens as another difficult dad.

In 1997, Stiller was nominated for an Emmy for his indelible Seinfeld performance as the cantankerous father of the character George.

It all began in 1993 when Stiller thought his entertainment career was near an end. That's when he received a phone call from Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld, about joining the cast led by comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Although the show was one of the most highly regarded in US TV history and was in its fourth season at the time, Stiller said he had never watched it. "Who's Seinfeld?" he reportedly asked.

He was initially told to play the role as a docile husband with an overbearing wife. But the character wasn'tworking, until Stiller suggested his reincarnation as anover-the-top crank who matched his wife scream for scream.

 

The early days

The son of a bus driver and a housewife, Stiller grew up in Depression-era Brooklyn. His inspiration to enter show business came at age 8 when his father took him to see the Marx Brothers classic A Night at the Opera.

Stiller earned a drama degree at Syracuse University after serving in World WarII, and then headed to New York City to launch his career. There was a brief involvement in Shakespearean theater, but his life and career took off after he met Anne Meara in spring 1953. They were married that fall.

Although they were seemingly a mismatched pair — he, a short stocky Jewish guy from Brooklyn and she a tall, Irish Catholic from the Long Island suburbs — their chemistry was immediate and apparent onstage.

They were soon appearing on the famous late-night television show The Ed Sullivan Show and performing at nightclubs around the country.  The couple went on to appear as a team in dozens of films and stage productions, including After-Play, a 1995 Off-Broadway show written be Meara.

In 2001, Stiller wrote an autobiography Married to Laughter about his lifelong marriage to his wife, who died in 2015.

In the early 1970s, Stiller and Meara began working separately. She made themovies The Out-of-Towners and Lovers and Other Strangers and had a one-year run starring on the television show Kate McShane. He did some Broadway work and appeared in films including Airport 1975 and TheTaking of Pelham One TwoThree.

Stiller and Meara raised two children in Manhattan, Ben and Amy, who are also actors.

The elder Stiller appeared in films starring his son Ben, such as Zoolander and The Heartbreak Kid.

sh/eg (dpa, Reuters, AP)