BY EDDY FRIEDFELD
When famed
producer and former gangster character actor Sheldon Leonard saw the failed television
sitcom pilot “Head of the Family,†which was based on Carl Reiner’s experience
as a writer and performer for Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows†and “Caesar’s
Hourâ€, he immediately saw its brilliance and potential. He said to creator and star Carl Reiner, who
would become his producing partner, in his distinctive tough guy voice, “We’ll
get a better actor to play you.†That
actor became the lead in the show whose name became the new title. “The Dick Van Dyke Showâ€, now a classic
sitcom, with Carl as writer, producer, show runner, and co-star, has become a
touchstone for everything that followed and is one of Carl’s many masterpieces.
He also launched the career of the
legendary Mary Tyler Moore.
Outside of “The
Dick Van Dyke Showâ€, there was no better actor to play Carl Reiner than Carl
Reiner. For decades, he was a performer,
comedian, writer, director, host, friend and mentor to many, including
myself. Everything he did was done with
excellence, hard work, and style. He
never phoned it in. Anytime you saw him,
he was smart, witty, warm, engaging and playing his A-plus game.
I got to meet Carl
through my work with Sid Caesar. He was always available, helpful and
insightful. At every one of the many
dinner parties held during the last two years of Sid Caesar’s life, Carl would
grab me by the arm and pull me over to a corner of the room, sit down with me
and say, “Catch me up on what’s going on in your life.†He was eager to offer advice and insight as
both teacher and friend. He loved that I
taught about him in college classes. He
would have appreciated the emails I got just today from former students
commiserating with me over his passing, but more importantly, thanking me for
introducing them to Carl Reiner’s genius.
At one dinner
party, he walked in the front door with Mel Brooks, his lifelong best friend
and partner in comedy, holding a souvenir mug he had recently received from the
Broadway show “Old Jews Telling Jokes.†After
dinner, he passed the mug around, with the proviso that anyone who held the mug
had to tell an old Jewish joke. From Mel
Brooks, to Dick Van Dyke, Monty Hall, Renee Taylor, Joe Bologna, Estelle
Harris, Richard Lewis, and Jeff Ross, everyone told a joke. It was a glorious and rare evening.
When Sid passed,
his daughter Karen asked me if I wanted any of his personal possessions as a
remembrance. I immediately chose the
mug. To me, it was a priceless symbol
of how to bring people together in a creative, joyful way. It has become one my prized possessions
because it represents Carl’s greatest gift and a character quality for everyone
to aspire to.
Over the years,
Carl would reach out to me if he needed a film clip, or had a quick comedy history
question. Voicemails would start with, “Eddy,
I don’t know if you remember me, but this is Carl Reiner.†I would call him back and say, “Carl, I think
about you almost every day, and I just saw you two weeks ago. How could I not remember you?†His grounding was a lesson on how to comport
yourself in life, with dignity and humility.
He was a
consummate professional who still got nervous before every show. That anxiety is what made him amazing almost
80 years later. I had the privilege of producing
and moderating The Sid Caesar Tribute at The Paley Center in 2014, with Carl,
Mel, and Billy Crystal (I can’t think of any other instance where Billy Crystal
would be third on a list).
When Carl arrived
to The Green Room, I walked over to him and helped him take off his
raincoat. I always admired and complimented
him on his consummate sartorial style. I said, “thank you for being here.â€
He replied
nervously, “We’ll see!â€
And we did
see. He went out onstage and killed, as
usual. As most performers shrank with age, he continued to grow and thrive. During the show I asked him, “What is it
about your process that allows you to read a whole stage and not just figure
out what you need to do, but how to make everybody play better?â€
“Well, you know,â€
he answered, “I found out late in life that what I really am is an emcee, a
master of ceremonies. I love nothing
more than to tell people, ‘Go look at this, go look at that and introduce
people to new people and things. Here's
Billy Crystal. He'll come out and get millions of laughs. But I introduced him.
I'm not kidding. And I'm a good emcee because of that, because
I really appreciate what's out there. That's the whole trick. What was the
question?â€
He was the rising
and indefatigable tide that lifted all creative boats. From Sid Caesar to Dick Van Dyke, to Steve
Martin, he made everyone he played with play better. And with Mel Brooks, his creative soul-mate, their
2000-Year-Old Man and related work became the Rosetta Stone for comedy. Their timing, combined with underlying
affection and trust made them incomparable and irresistible, both on stage and
off.
There
is a scene from the brilliant Showtime series “Billions†where Axe and Wags are
waxing poetically about mortality. “Dying in your thirties or forties?â€
“Tragic.†“Fifties?†“Such a shame.†“Sixties?†“Too soon.†“Seventies?†“A
good run.†“Eighties?†“A life well lived.†“Nineties?†“Hell of a ride!â€
Carl,
at 98 you had a hell of a ride, but for my money you still left the party way
too early. You touched a lot of people and you leave behind not only a
legendary body of work, but also a lot of people who love you, respect you, and
continue to be inspired by and learn from you. So that, as we say in show
business, or any other business, is a good run. Rest well, my friend.
Cinema Retro Contributor Eddy Friedfeld
teaches comedy and film history at Yale and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.