Before Ben Stiller made a name for himself in movies, television, and comedy, his parents, Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara, were an unstoppable and boisterous duo. Throughout their 50-year joint career, Stiller and Meara appeared together on several TV shows, TV specials, and recordings, making America laugh until their respective deaths in 2020 and 2015. Now, Ben Stiller is further cementing his legacy by donating his career archives to the National Comedy Center ahead of the release of the documentary Stiller & Mehra: Nothing Lost on Apple TV.
Stiller and Mehra managed the archive themselves, preserving public and personal artifacts from their long careers and private lives. It includes artifacts from early improv sessions at Chicago’s Compass Players, love letters exchanged during dates, and handwritten drafts of iconic sketches performed on world-famous stages such as “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” and “The Carol Burnett Show.”
“Knowing that my parents’ body of work is housed at the National Comedy Center means so much to me, because their legacy is a gift not just to my family, but to anyone who wants to understand comedy as a creative process,” Stiller said of the donation. “They would have been so proud to know that the National Comedy Center is bringing their archives to life in a way that can inspire and educate future generations.”
Dr. Laura LaPlaca, director of archives at the National Comedy Center, added, “The Stiller and Mehra archives contain tens of thousands of pages spanning an incredible body of work. Their comedy was created to feel organic, but they were serial editors, holding onto a single sketch through sometimes decades of iteration and refinement.”
This donation coincides with the release of Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost. Directed and produced by Ben Stiller, the doc chronicles the parents’ personal, professional and creative partnership and the lasting impact they had on American comedy. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 5th and was released on Apple TV on October 26th.
A selection of works from the Stiller & Meara archives will be exhibited at the National Comedy Center facility in Jamestown, New York.
