All about Ben Stiller’s parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara

Ben Stiller is the son of two legendary comedians.

The Zoolander star was born to Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, who had a career spanning over 60 years in show business. Jerry and Ann formed the husband-and-wife comedy team Stiller and Mehra in the 1960s, famous for appearing on variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show.

Personally, they each had successful acting careers, with Jerry best known for playing George Constanza’s father on Seinfeld, and Ann appearing in dozens of TV shows and movies, including Archie Bunker’s Place, Oz, and Sex and the City.

While raising Ben and his older sister, Amy Stiller, Jerry and Anne always put family first. The couple decided to end their comedy career in 1970 to save their marriage and pursue individual careers instead.

Stiller & Meera: Nothing Lost, a documentary about Ben’s parents, was released on Apple TV on October 24th. In the film, Ben, who was separated from wife Christine Taylor for several years from 2017 until they reunited during the pandemic, reflected on how his parents influenced his view of family.

“I started thinking about my parents and all the stress and strain I remember seeing as a child, the pressures they were under when they worked together, and how they stayed together through it all,” he said. “I think I wanted to somehow understand how they did it.”

Ann passed away in 2015 at the age of 85, and Jerry passed away in 2020 at the age of 92. Ben began filming Stiller & Mela: Nothing Lost after his father’s death.

Here’s everything you need to know about Ben Stiller’s parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

Jerry and Ann met in 1953 and married in 1954.

According to the Washington Post, Jerry and Anne first met in 1953 at a casting agent’s office in New York City. The agent reportedly confronted her while she was alone in his office, and she left in tears. Seeing that she was upset, Jerry offered to take her out for coffee. According to the paper, Anne accepted and asked Jerry to steal a set of silverware from a restaurant and place it in her apartment, which she did.

The two were an unlikely combination. Jerry was Jewish and grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with his three younger brothers, while Anne grew up on Long Island, New York, the only child of an Irish Catholic family. Jerry, who attended Syracuse University after serving in the Army, also didn’t have much of a love life until he met Ann.

Jerry told PEOPLE in 1977, “In college, girls weren’t interested in me. They thought I was weird. I was always trying to trick people and be funny.”

But Anne encouraged him to be himself. “She said, ‘Why don’t you just be yourself?’ Within two months, we were married,” Jerry recalled.

The two married in 1954, but Ben says his mother knew Jerry was the one when he stole silverware after their first coffee date.

“He stole silverware for her for the rest of his life,” Ben said of his parents on Today Sunday. “He was devoted to her.”

they had two children

Jerry and Ann welcomed their first child, daughter Amy, in September 1961. Four years later, on November 30, 1965, their second child, Ben, was born. Starting a family prompted Anne to convert from Catholicism to Judaism, converting in 1961 before Amy was born.

“I wanted my kids to know who they were,” she told PEOPLE in 1977.

The family settled on Manhattan’s Upper West Side because it was “a coveted place, especially for artists and theater people,” Jerry told West Side Rag in January 2016. Ben and Amy had an unconventional upbringing, as their parents worked in show business.

“It wasn’t a typical family structure,” Ben told PEOPLE in 2000. “We had to stay up late and go to the TV studio. It was like a fun fantasyland.”

However, the parents’ fame also came with negative consequences. “I grew up watching people greet my parents on the street every day,” he told PEOPLE in 1990.

They performed as the comedy duo “Stiller & Mela”

Jerry and Anne performed as the comedy duo Stiller & Mela throughout the 1960s, even though Anne had no ambitions to work in comedy. “What I wanted most was to be a comedienne,” she told PEOPLE in 1977.

However, Jerry realized that their contrasting features, backgrounds, and personalities made fertile ground for comedy, and Stiller & Meera was born. One of their most popular works was playing Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, a short Jewish man and a tall Catholic woman, a couple inspired by their own love story.

“I thought we were an unlikely couple,” Jerry tells PEOPLE. “People would say to Ann, ‘Hey, are you married to him?'” I thought it would work. ”

Stiller & Meera became popular in the 1960s, appearing on sketch shows, including 36 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, in the 1970s, they disbanded to save their marriage.

“I love Anne, but if I had been dependent on her for work, I would have lost her as a wife,” Jerry tells PEOPLE of his decision to pursue an independent career. “We felt like two guys.”

Anne added: “I didn’t know where the act ended and our marriage began.”

Despite dissolving their comedian partnership, the couple occasionally performed together over the years. The two wrote and appeared in numerous radio commercials, including for Blue Nun Wine, which were so successful that the Chicago Tribune reported that sales increased by 500%.

They briefly had their own sitcom in the 1980s, but reunited on screen in Archie Bunker’s Place and King of Queens, and their characters married in the 2007 series finale.

“We missed going back and forth. I love improvising with him,” Anne told the Los Angeles Times in November 2010.

Anne was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award.

After Stiller and Meera’s breakup, Anne went on to become a successful television and film actress. She appeared on dozens of screens over the decades, playing both comedy and drama roles, and was nominated for several awards.

In the 1970s, Anne starred in her own short-lived television series, Kate McShane. This series was about a tough-talking lawyer. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 1976. The following year, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her recurring role in the sitcom Rhoda.

Then, in the 1980s, Ann starred as Veronica Rooney in the hit comedy Archie Bunker’s Place, a role that earned her two more Emmy nominations. She won a Writers Guild of America Award in 1984 for co-writing the television movie The Other Woman (1983) and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1993 for her role in the play Anna Christie.

Anne’s television credits included a recurring role on the soap opera All My Children and a role as Mary Brady, Steve’s (David Eigenberg) mother, on Sex and the City. She continued to work until her death in 2015.

Jerry appeared on Seinfeld and King of Queens

Jerry’s career slowed down after Stiller & Meera ended, and the comedian began appearing on game shows “while trying to deal with the fact that my wife was fine,” Jerry tells PEOPLE. But in the 1990s, his fame was revived thanks to his role as Frank Constanza on Seinfeld.

However, his iconic Seinfeld role almost never materialized. Jerry initially turned down the role because he was busy with a Broadway show.

“They said they wanted you to play George Costanza’s father on ‘Seinfeld,’ and I said, ‘Who is Seinfeld?'” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “They said this is a really interesting show and it’s on now. And I said, ‘Well, we’re in a Broadway show and we’re about to rehearse. We’ll pass.'”

However, Jerry ultimately agreed to take the role and played the older Costanza from 1993 to 1998. Jerry was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 1997 for his performance.

After his time on Seinfeld, Jerry intended to retire, but Kevin James persuaded him to join the cast of The King of Queens. He played Arthur Spooner for nine seasons from 1998 to 2007.

Leah Remini, who played Arthur’s daughter Carrie Heffernan, told PEOPLE of her co-star, who passed away in 2020, “He made things that weren’t on paper funny and brought them to life.” “Jerry was a star and a legend, that’s true, but he never acted like one.”

Jerry and Ann both appeared in movies with Ben

Over the years, Ben appeared on screen with his parents several times. He made his first film appearance in 1987, playing opposite his father in Hot Pursuit. Ben went on to work with his father on some of the most iconic films, including Zoolander (2001), The Heartbreak Kid (2007), and Zoolander 2 (2016), which was Jerry’s last on-screen appearance before his death in 2020.

Anne appeared on screen with her son in Night at the Museum (2006), and Ben also collaborated with his mother. Ben, Jerry and Anne appeared in the film Heavyweight (1995), and Amy played Ben and his parents in Highway to Hell (1992).

The experience of working with his parents helped shape Ben as an actor and comedian.

After Anne’s death in 2015, he said at the parade: “Obviously my dad is a big person in my life. I love my dad.” “But my mother was the person I most admired for her perspective and humor.”

Ann passed away in May 2015 and Jerry passed away in 2020.

Anne passed away on May 23, 2015 at the age of 85. Ben opened up about his mother’s death to Parade in February 2016, saying at the time that he was still coming to terms with her death.

“We’re still processing it,” he told Parade. “It always affects me. You know, you’re living your life and everything’s great and then you’re like, ‘Pow! She’s not here. It’s hard for me.’

He added: “I feel as deeply connected to my mother now as I did when she was here. I truly felt that she wasn’t just going to go away, because she believed, like me, that there was something more after we died.”

About five years after his wife’s death, Jerry passed away on May 11, 2020 at the age of 92.

Both Ben and his sister Amy were able to be with their father in his final days. Ben told The New Yorker he was “very, very grateful” for that. Later that month, Ben opened up to Willie Geist on Sunday Today about his father’s death.

“He was irreplaceable,” Ben said. “I knew that, but when something like this happens, you really feel that way. And I also know that he loved doing the work that he did and he loved connecting with people.”

Ben felt like his parents were ‘reconnected’ after Jerry’s death

After Jerry’s death, Ben finds solace in the idea that his parents are reconnected in the afterlife.

“They found each other and were there for each other,” Ben said of his parents on a May 2020 episode of Today. “Don’t feel too bad, but I feel like they’ve reconnected.”

Ben continued to remember his parents’ love story and said he imagined his father with a “big smile” after being reunited with his mother, who died five years ago.

“They fell in love and stayed married for 62 years,” he said. “They just had a beautiful relationship. So I think for him, this was just a thing. I think he’s got a big smile on his face somewhere.”