January 15, 1999   27 Tevet 5759

Good Humor Man
Show-biz great Carl Reiner, here to kick off the Federation annual
campaign, has been serving up comedic classics for more than 50 years.

The Three Tenors accompanied by ... Carl Reiner?
It might have happened if the comedian's dream of becoming an opera singer
had panned out. "I've never sung in the opera 'cause I don't sing well. I
don't have a good rhythm or pitch," says Reiner. "It's enough to sing in
musicals - I can sing, but I'm not a singer."
But he did become a writer and a performer who has made quite an impact
during his nearly 50 years in show business. From the groundbreaking "Dick
Van Dyke Show," to his 2000 Year Old Man shtick with pal Mel Brooks, to
directing fellow comedians like Steve Martin in "The Jerk," Reiner, 76,
knows how to tickle a funnybone.
The comedian will be the featured speaker at the 1999 Atlanta Jewish
Federation's annual campaign kickoff, a fundraiser co-sponsored with Scana
Energy. The event will take place on Sunday, Jan. 24 at the Crowne Plaza
Ravinia in Dunwoody. ©
"I love to make people laugh," Reiner admits during a phone conversation
from his Los Angeles home. "When I started, I wanted to be a straight
actor, and I was for many years. But I always wanted to make people laugh."
Today, Reiner and his wife of 55 years, Estelle, reside in Beverly Hills,
"where I belong," he cracks. The couple's home is within 15 minutes of
their three children, director Rob ("When Harry Met Sally," "A Few Good
Men"), Lucas and Sylvia. A shelf in the den is littered with the dozen Emmy
awards Reiner has earned for his television work. After a recent California
earthquake, he says, six of the statuettes were broken, although they have
since been repaired. "I liked it when they were crashed," Reiner jokes.
"The balls were off them and the wings were off them and they looked like
abstract sculptures."
Reiner was born on March 20, 1922 in Bronx, N.Y. The son of Irving and
Bessie Reiner, he and his brother Charles (now of Atlanta) were raised in a
religious Jewish community, even though the family was not particularly
observant. "It's a big part of who I am," Reiner says of his Jewish
heritage. "My friends were all frum, but because my father didn't go to
shul and I hung out with my friends and didn't want to be alone on Friday
and Saturday, I went to shul with them."
He graduated from high school at age 16. "I was very smart when I was
young, and then I got dumber as the years progressed," Reiner says. He had
long had an interest in acting, but didn't pursue anything until his
brother urged him to enroll in a local drama program. Immediately drawn to
the stage, Reiner began performing for free just to get his feet wet.
Eventually, he persuaded the producers to pay him a mere $1 a week for his
efforts.
Looking to be taken seriously as a actor, he joined a repertory company
performing Shakespeare in the southern United States and also worked in
summer stock theater in and around New York City. During World War II,
Reiner joined the Army, but continued to act, touring several South Pacific
bases in GI revues and honing his routine in front of soldiers in military
rec halls.
When he returned home in 1946, Reiner set his sights on Broadway. He got
his wish, touring in the leading role of "Call Me Mister" and later
appearing in the Broadway productions "Inside U.S.A." and "Alive and
Kicking."
Max Leibman, one of the latter's producers, also produced and directed
NBC's variety program, "Your Show of Shows." In 1950, he hired Reiner as a
character actor and host alongside comedy notables Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca
and Reiner's Army buddy, Howard Morris - along with a writing staff that
included Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart and a young Woody Allen.
"We all learned from each other and we learned as we earned because there
had never been a variety show that did original material week after week,"
he says. "There had been radio shows that had sketches, but not dancing and
songs. All the people we worked with on 'Your Show of Shows' had a
different kind of humor. Watching each one contribute their best, you
learned about what makes a joke a joke. Sometimes it was a word. Sometimes
it was an attitude. We got more laughs with attitude than we did with jokes
sometimes."
Ironically, one of Reiner's most enduring routines grew out of a an
interview he had seen on a program called "We The People Speak." Reiner was
distressed about a recreation of an alleged conversation where a heavily
accented man imitated Russian leader Joseph Stalin. With that on his mind,
Reiner spontaneously said to Brooks during an interview on "Your Show Of
Shows," "Here's a man that was at the scene of the crucifixion 2000 years
ago." And with that, the infamous 2000 Year Old Man was born. The idea,
usually ad-libbed by the pair, spawned four records. The latest - "The 2000
Year Old Man In The Year 2000" - is currently nominated for a Grammy award.
Reiner's partnership with Caesar inspired him to move into writing
full-time. The pair later worked together on two more shows, "Caesar's
Hour" and "Sid Caesar Invites You." Reiner discovered his passion for
writing and later joined the staff of "The Dinah Shore Show" as a writer.
He also published the first of three novels, a fictional account of his
foray into acting titled "Enter Laughing," which was later adapted for the
screen and stage.
Reiner's quick wit and clever scripting inspired many would-be comics. "He
wasn't the first smart comedian," local funnyman Jerry Farber says of one
of his comedic mentors. "But he took being smart and intelligent, clever,
and irreverent to new heights."
As the '60s approached, Reiner teamed up with Rat Packer Peter Lawford to
put together a comedy show. But after writing 13 episodes, they could not
sell the pilot. "I said, 'That's it. That's my best shot. I'm not going to
bother with television anymore.' So I started writing movies," Reiner says.
After appearing in several films, he was persuaded once again to try his
hand at television, this time as a producer. It was a role he adapted to
well, originating and producing one of the
most successful shows of all time, "The Dick Van Dyke Show," a job he
recalls as "the big thrill of my life." He put a personal imprint on the
show. "Mainly in television, the producers were also the writers. So, I
wrote 20 of the first 30 shows the first year and 40 of the first 60 shows
[through] the second year," he says.
The show became a television milestone. "If you want to pick a dozen shows
that changed the face of television and what defined television history,
'The Dick Van Dyke Show' is without question one of the shows," notes
entertainment industry columnist David Poland. "To knock out a sitcom and
write it yourself in that era on your own was pretty amazing. [Reiner] was
the first one to come in who was not the talent and didn't have the power
of a star to create a show like that that was so completely his."
Reiner has continued to perform as an actor in several films including
"It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963) "The Russians Are Coming, The
Russians Are Coming" (1966) and "The End" (1978) as he slowly shifted
toward the director's chair. The first movie he oversaw as director was the
film adaptation of his book "Enter Laughing" in 1967, followed by "Where's
Poppa?" (1970) and "Oh God!" (1977). He also worked with comedian Steve
Martin on several of his early films, including "The Jerk," "Dead Men Don't
Wear Plaid," "All Of Me," and "The Lonely Guy."
Even now, Reiner says he can appreciate the humor of younger comics like
Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano and Tim Allen. Though his early works were
devoid of the foul language commonly found in today's comedy bits, Reiner
isn't offended by its use, as long as it has legitimate entertainment
value. "The stand-up comedians on television - there's no-holds-barred. I
don't like mean-spirited - making fun of people and the way they look," he
says. "Profanity never upset me if it was used correctly. People have
always sworn and cursed. [I don't mind it] if the reason they are doing
that is because you are showing people as they are. If youare using it to
get a rise out of people and manipulate an audience, then I don't think
it's an acceptable device."
In 1999, Reiner says his New Year's resolution is to "open my word
processor each day and write a few words - anything!" Currently he is
working on a television script for a new half-hour comedy, but declines to
elaborate on the concept. He and Brooks still get together once or twice a
week for dinner or a movie and he still talks to Caesar by phone every now
and then. He realizes that Gen Xers may know him best as Rob Reiner's dad,
but that doesn't faze the veteran comedian. "Why would that bother me?" he
asks. "We're close and my wife and I are both thrilled with the wonderful
person that he's become."
The elder Reiner is also working on a book of short stories titled, "Sorry
Solomon and Guey Jew, or: How Paul Robeson Saved My Life," slated for
publication this fall. "Jew is a very big Chinese name," Reiner attests. "I
passed a sign when I was doing 'Your Show of Shows' everyday going to work.
There was a big Guey Jew laundry, so I made a fictionalized story about
this man."
Reiner admits he observes most of the Jewish holidays simply by eating the
foods associated with them. However, Judaism has always played a major role
in his comedy routines. "You can't help it. It started inadvertently," he
maintains. "After Hitler, there weren't a lot of people who spoke with
Yiddish accents for humor. Before that, there were a lot on radio and
vaudeville. They actually called them 'Jew Comics' - that meant they spoke
with a Yiddish accent. But when Hitler came, making fun of Jews was not a
good thing for Jews to be doing, so Jew comics stopped doing it."
He and best friend Brooks have toyed with the idea of taking their
2000-year-old man routine to Carnegie Hall for a live show next New Year's
Eve. He might never make it to the opera, but all in all, Reiner is pleased
with the success his life has brought him. "I have something in print, I
have something on film, I have something on tape and on CD," he says. "So,
there's a history of me someplace, that I've lived and I haven't fouled the
universe or been a toxic person."