Anne Meara

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**Anne Meara** (September 20, 1929 – May 23, 2015) was an American actress and comedian. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor and comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller.

## Personal life

Meara was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of parents of Irish descent, Mary (née Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara, a lawyer. Meara was raised as a member of the Catholic Church, and converted to Reform Judaism six years after marrying Jerry Stiller. She has long stressed that she did not convert at Stiller's request, but because "Catholicism was dead to me." She took the conversion seriously and studied the faith in such depth that her Jewish-born husband quipped, "Being married to Anne has made me more Jewish."

Meara has written about her mother's death and her childhood experiences at Catholic boarding school.

## Career

Meara married Stiller in 1954. Both were members of the improvisational company The Compass Players (which later became The Second City), and the pair, as the comedy team Stiller and Meara, brought many of their real-life relationship foibles to bear on their often-improvised comedy routines. After some years honing the act, Stiller and Meara became regulars on *The Ed Sullivan Show* and other TV programs. Their career declined, however, as variety series gradually disappeared.

During the 1970s, Meara and Stiller wrote and performed many radio commercials together for Blue Nun Wine. She had a recurring role on the sitcom *Rhoda* as airline stewardess Sally Gallagher, one of the title character's best friends. She also had a small role opposite Laurence Olivier in *The Boys from Brazil* (1978).

In 1975 she starred in her own series *Kate McShane* on CBS, which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, but the series was cancelled after only 10 episodes.

Meara costarred with Carroll O'Connor and Martin Balsam in the early 1980s hit sitcom *Archie Bunker's Place*, which was a continuation of the influential 1970s sitcom *All in the Family*. She played the role of Veronica Rooney, the bar's cook, for the show's first three seasons (1979–1982). During that time, she also worked in the movie *Fame*, in which she played English teacher, Elizabeth Sherwood. She also appeared as the grandmother in the TV series *ALF* in the late 1980s. Her own 1986 TV sitcom, *The Stiller and Meara Show*, in which Stiller played the deputy mayor of New York City and Meara portrayed his wife, a television commercial actress, was unsuccessful.

More recently, she has had recurring roles on the television shows *Sex and the City* (as Mary Brady) and *The King of Queens* (as Veronica). In the 2004-'05 season, she appeared in an episode of *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit*.

She was the consulting director of J.A.P. - The Jewish American Princesses of Comedy, a 2007 Off-Broadway production that features live stand-up routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s: Totie Fields, Jean Carroll, Pearl Williams, Betty Walker and Belle Barth.

Starting in October 2010, Meara and her husband Jerry Stiller began starring in a Yahoo! web series called *Stiller & Meara* produced by Red Hour Digital, a production company owned by their son Ben Stiller.

She accepted a role in the Off-Broadway play *Love, Loss, and What I Wore* for an April 27 through May 29, 2011, run with Conchata Ferrell, AnnaLynne McCord, Minka Kelly and B. Smith.

She continued actively developing the next generation as demonstrated by teaching a technique and scene study class at HB Studio up until her death.

## Filmography

* *The Out-of-Towners* (1970)
* *Lovers and Other Strangers* (1970)
* Irish Whiskey Rebellion (1972)
* *Nasty Habits* (1977)
* *The Boys from Brazil* (1978)
* *Fame* (1980)
* In Our Hands (1984) (documentary)
* *The Longshot* (1986)
* The Perils of P.K. (1986)
* *My Little Girl* (1987)
* *That's Adequate* (1989)
* *Awakenings* (1990)
* *Through an Open Window* (1992) (short subject)
* *Highway to Hell* (1992)
* So You Want to Be an Actor (1993) (short subject)
* *Reality Bites* (1994)
* *The Search for One-Eye Jimmy* (1994)
* *Heavyweights* (1995)
* *Kiss of Death* (1995)
* *The Daytrippers* (1996)
* *The Thin Pink Line* (1998)
* *Southie* (1998)
* The Diary of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man (1999)
* *Judy Berlin* (1999)
* *Brooklyn Thrill Killers* (1999) (short subject)
* *A Fish in the Bathtub* (1999)
* *Amy Stiller's Breast* (2000) (short subject)
* *The Independent* (2000)
* *Zoolander* (2001)
* *Keeping It Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch* (2001) (documentary)
* *Get Well Soon* (2001)
* *Like Mike* (2002)
* The Yard Sale (2002) (short subject)
* *Crooked Lines* (2003)
* *Chump Change* (2004)
* *Night at the Museum* (2006)
* *The Mirror* (2007)
* *Sex and the City: The Movie* (2008)
* *(The Queen of Greenwich Village)"*
* Another Harvest Moon (2009)
* *Planes: Fire & Rescue* (2014) Winnie (voice)

## Television work

* *The Greatest Gift (TV series)* (1954–1955)
* *Ninotchka* (1960)
* *Dames at Sea* (1971)
* *The Paul Lynde Show* (1972–1973)
* *The Corner Bar* (cast member in 1973)
* *Kate McShane* (1975) (canceled after 10 episodes)
* *Rhoda* (cast member from 1976–1977)
* Take Five with Stiller & Meara (1977–1978)
* *Archie Bunker's Place* (cast member from 1979–1982)
* HBO Sneak Previews (costarred with Jerry Stiller 1979-1982)
* *The Other Woman* (1983, writer and cast member)
* *The Stiller and Meara Show* (1986) (canceled after a few weeks, cast member and co-writer)
* *ALF* (appeared in 7 episodes from 1987–1989, wrote one episode in 1989)
* *The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (1987)*
* *Murder, She Wrote* (1988) (guest appearance)
* Avenue Z Afternoon (1991)
* The Sunset Gang (1991)
* *All My Children* (cast member from 1992–1999)
* Love off Limits (1993)
* "In the Heat of the Night" (1994) (1 episode)
* *Great Performances* (*The Mother (1994)*
* Jitters (1997)
* After Play (1999, writer and cast member)
* *What Makes a Family* (2001)
* *Will & Grace* (2001) (Mrs. Friedman, 1 episode)
* The Yard Sale (2002)
* *Sex and the City* (2002–2004)
* *The King of Queens* (1999, 2003–2007)
* *Oz* (appeared in 2 episodes in 1999 & 2002)
* *Crooked Lines* (2003)
* *Good Morning, Miami* (2003, 1 episode)
* *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (appeared in 2 episodes in 2004 & 2012)
* *Four Kings* (2006, 1 episode)
* The Shallow End of the Ocean (2007)
* *Mercy* (2009, 1 episode)
* *Wonder Pets* (2009–2010, 2 episodes)
* *Love Boat* (TV series) | 1979, Super Mom; I'll See You Again; April's Return, 1 episode

## Theatre

* Down the Garden Paths (2000, playwright)
* After-Play (1995, playwright, lead)
* *Anna Christie* (1993, Tony Award nominee)
* *Eastern Standard* (1988)

## Radio

* I'd Rather Eat Pants, National Public Radio, 2002
* Dining Alone (Blue Nun wine ad with Jerry Stiller, winner Clio Award, 1975)

## References

1. ↑ **Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration' not found.**
2. ↑ Bloom, Nate (March 17, 2009). Interfaith Family.com: "A Pint of Guinness, A Cup of Manischevitz: Some Irish/Jewish Connections".
3. ↑ Anne Meara Biography (1929-)
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6. ↑ LA Times
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## External links

* Stiller & Meara Yahoo podcast
* Anne Meara at the Internet Movie Database
* Anne Meara at the Internet Broadway Database
* Anne Meara at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
* Works by or about Anne Meara in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
* Production: Anna Christie - *Working in the Theatre Seminar* video at American Theatre Wing.org, January 1993
* Anne Meara interview video at the Archive of American Television

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 Alternative names
 Date of birth
 Place of birth
 Date of death
 Place of death