In a Life Cut Short by Racism, Anti-Semitism, and the Blacklist, Comedy Virtuoso—Actor, Director, Scriptwriter, Recording Star—Carl Reiner is Dead at a Mere 98 Years of Age

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 12:11:00 P.M. EDT

The Wrong Reiner Dies—Carl at 98

NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a “second banana” to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy’s front ranks as the creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and straight man to Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man,” has died. He was 98.

Reiner’s assistant Judy Nagy said he died Monday night of natural causes [sic] his home in Beverly Hills, California.

He was one of show business’ best-liked men, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens, in Caesar’s 1950s troupe, as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and in such films as “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”

In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the “Ocean’s Eleven” movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including “Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age” and “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.”

Films he directed included “Oh, God!” starring George Burns and John Denver; “All of Me,” with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy “Where’s Poppa?” He was especially proud of his books, including “Enter Laughing,” an autobiographical novel later adapted into a film and Broadway show; and “My Anecdotal Life,” a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, “I Remember Me.”

But many remember Reiner for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” one of the most popular television series of all time and a model of ensemble playing, physical comedy, and timeless, good-natured wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and young son in suburban New Rochelle, New York.

“The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal,” Reiner once said. “It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show.”

Reiner is the father of actor-director Rob Reiner (GRA: a “meathead” on-screen and in real life).
--GRA
 

N.S.: It took me several minutes to tote up all of Carl Reiner’s TV and movie credits. I came up with 1,570, the most I’ve ever seen. Reiner beat out even champion movie extras. But that was not by accepting IMDB’s ridiculous counting method. According to IMDB, Reiner had only 25 writing credits. But that’s because, no matter how many episodes of a TV show one is credited with writing, IMDB, will only give one a single credit. Thus, although Reiner had 158 writing credits for The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966), according to IMDB, he had only one.
Likewise, with The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-1974), Reiner had 72 writing credits, but IMDB reduced them to one.

Reiner also won nine Prime Time Emmys.

But Reiner was brilliant, too. I don’t like to use the word “genius,” regarding performers, but he was about the closest thing to one in the sound era, and he performed with the best: Dick Van Dyke, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Mel Brooks, Howard Morris, et al.

Not only did Carl Reiner outwork everyone else, without ever retiring, he did so in spite of being a hard lefty during the 1950s. Blacklist, what blacklist?

Only days before Reiner’s death, he and his old friend and collaborator, Mel Brooks, came out for the racist-terrorist-cop-killer gang, Black Lives Matter.