R.I.P.: Jerry Stiller, Comedian-Actor

Jerry Stiller 1927-2020

Jerry Stiller, a classically trained actor who became a comedy star twice — in the 1960s in partnership with his wife, Anne Meara, and in the 1990s with a memorable recurring role on “Seinfeld” — has died.

He was 92, according to The NYTimes.

His death was confirmed on Monday by his son, the actor Ben Stiller, in a tweet, who said his father had died of natural causes.

Stiller’s accomplishments as an actor were considerable. But he was best known as a comedian.

The team of Stiller and Meara was for many years a familiar presence in nightclubs, on television variety and talk shows, and in radio and television commercials, most memorably for Blue Nun wine and Amalgamated Bank.

Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara

Years after the act broke up, Stiller captured a new generation of fans as Frank Costanza, the short-tempered and not entirely sane father of Jason Alexander’s George, on the NBC series “Seinfeld,” one of the most successful television comedies of all time.

Just a few months after the final episode of “Seinfeld” (in which Frank had one last moment in the spotlight and, of course, spent most of it yelling), broadcast on May 14, 1998, Stiller was back on television playing another off-kilter father — a marginally more restrained version of Frank Costanza — on another sitcom, “The King of Queens,” which made its debut that fall on CBS.

A regular this time, he played Arthur Spooner, the excitable father of the wife (Leah Remini) of the working-slob central character (Kevin James), for the show’s entire nine-season run.

A guest star on several episodes of “The King of Queens” was Ms. Meara, whose character married his in the series finale. Younger viewers might not have known it, but their scenes together represented the reunion of one of the most successful male-female comedy teams of all time.