Carl Reiner, courtesy Angela George, via Wikipedia
Carl Reiner is an American writer, actor and producer. One of the true pioneers of television, he has won nine Emmy Awards in writing, acting and producing categories. On House, M.D., he portrayed Eugene Schwartz, the clinic patient who was the innocent bystander in a prank war between Gregory House and Lisa Cuddy in the Season 5 episode Both Sides Now.
Reiner has been on American television practically as long as television has existed in the United States. He started his career on The Fashion Story in 1948 as an on-screen personality, and became a regular sketch performer on live television throughout the fifties. He was one of the featured performers on Your Show of Shows, the most popular television sketch comedy series of the day, and later followed fellow writers and performers Sid Ceaser, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon onto Ceaser's Hour.
However, in 1959 he decided to have a go at writing, producing and starring in his own situation comedy. The pilot episode, Head of the Family, about a New York comedy writer working with an egotistical performer on a live television show was well received, but it soon became apparent that Reiner was the wrong person to play the male lead. The show was completely reworked with a young actor in the main role and The Dick Van Dyke Show ran for six hit seasons and made the career of its lead and a young woman who played the main character's wife: Mary Tyler Moore. Reiner played the egotistical, vain "star" of the show in a show, Alan Brady. The series ran practically forever in syndication, making Reiner a rich man.
Throughout this period, Reiner worked with his old war buddy Mel Brooks to develop The 2000 Year Old Man, a totally improvised comedy bit about Reiner interviewing Brooks, who pretended to have lived for several millennia and was more than willing to share his insights about biblical events. The collaboration brought them a Grammy Award for best comedy album.
By the 1980s, Reiner was working with another young comedian who, although a success in concerts and television appearances, was unable to break into films. Their collaborations, The Jerk and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, made Steve Martin a bankable movie star.
At the age of 90, Reiner is still a regular on television, having a recurring role on Hot in Cleveland.
In his long career, Reiner has had featured roles in Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Linus! The Lion Hearted, Good Heavens!, Summer School, The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, King of the Hill, Ocean's Eleven (and its two sequels), Life With Bonnie, Father of the Pride and The Cleveland Show.
Connections
- Appeared with Ralph Garman on Family Guy
- Appeared with Colleen Camp on American Dad!
- Appeared with Riley Thomas Stewart and Steve Valentine on Jake and the Never Land Pirates
- Appeared with Jaleel White in Dumbbells
- Appeared with Amber Tamblyn on Two and a Half Men
- Appeared with Orlando Jones and Daryl Sabara on Father of the Pride
- Appeared with Candice Bergen on Boston Legal
- Appeared with Steve Valentine on Crossing Jordan
- Appeared with Brent Briscoe in The Majestic
- Appeared with Breckin Meyer on King of the Hill
- Appeared with Piper Perabo in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
- Appeared with Julie Warner on Family Law
- Appeared with Colleen Camp and LL Cool J in The Right to Remain Silent
- Appeared with Anne Elizabeth Ramsay on Mad About You
- Appeared with Dan Butler on Frasier
- Appeared with Sherilyn Fenn in Fatal Instinct
- Appeared with Peter Graves in Steve Martin: Comedy Is Not Pretty
- Appeared with Shirley Knight in Medical Story