All About Ben Stiller's Late Parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara

Ben Stiller’s parents, comedy legends Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, were married for 61 years

Ben Stiller was born with comedy in his DNA.

The Zoolander star is the son of comedy legends Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, who both had careers in show business that spanned more than six decades. Together, Jerry and Anne formed the husband-and-wife comedy team Stiller & Meara in the 1960s, famously appearing on variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. Individually, they each went on to have successful acting careers — with Jerry famously playing George Constanza’s father on Seinfeld and Anne working on dozens of television shows and films, including Archie Bunker’s Place, Oz and Sex and the City.

But despite their fame, Jerry and Anne always made their family their top priority. The couple decided to break up their comedy act in 1970 in order to save their marriage, pursuing individual careers instead. They also always supported their children — Ben and his older sister, Amy Stiller — in their own performing endeavors over the years. Ben has credited his career success to the “love and encouragement” he received as a child from his parents.

“Nothing was as important in my development as my family’s support,” he told Lufthansa Magazine.

Ben and Amy also honored their parents’ dedication to family in 2012 when they presented them with the Made in NY Mayor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement. “Show business was important but family always came first,” Ben said during their speech. “That was the most important thing.”

Both Jerry and Anne lived long lives: Anne died in 2015 at the age of 85, and Jerry died in 2020 at 92. So who are Ben Stiller’s iconic parents? Here’s everything to know about Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

Jerry and Anne met in 1953 and were married in 1954

Jerry and Anne first crossed paths in 1953 in a casting agent’s office in New York City, the Washington Post reported. The agent reportedly made a pass at Anne while she was alone in his office, and she left in tears. Seeing her upset, Jerry offered to take her for a cup of coffee. Anne accepted — and then asked Jerry to steal a set of silverware from the restaurant for her apartment, which he did, according to the Post.

The two were an improbable match: Jerry was Jewish and grew up with his three younger siblings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, while Anne was raised on Long Island, New York, as the only child from an Irish Catholic household. Jerry, who attended Syracuse University after serving in the Army, also hadn’t had much luck in the romance department prior to meeting Anne.

“Girls weren’t interested in me in college,” Jerry told PEOPLE in 1977. “They thought I was weird. I was always putting people on, trying to be funny.”

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

The couple married in 1954 — but according to Ben, his mother knew Jerry was the one after that very first coffee date when he stole the silverware for her.

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

They had two children

Jerry and Anne welcomed their first child, a daughter named Amy Stiller, in September 1961. Four years later, on Nov. 30, 1965, their second child, Ben, was born. Starting a family prompted Anne to convert from Catholicism to Judaism, which she did prior to Amy’s birth in 1961.

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

The family settled on the Upper West Side of Manhattan because it “was the place everybody wanted to be, especially if you were an artist or in the theater,” Jerry told the West Side Rag in 2016. And having two parents working in show business led to an unconventional upbringing for Ben and Amy.

“It wasn’t the typical family setup,” Ben told PEOPLE in 2000. “We got to stay up late and go to TV studios. It was like this fun fantasyland.”

But their parents’ fame also came with its negative effects. “I grew up with people saying hello to my parents on the street every day,” he told PEOPLE in 1990. “Deep down, I’ve always wanted people to say hello to me, too.”

They performed as the comedy duo Stiller & Meara but broke up their act to save their marriage

Jerry and Anne performed as the comedy duo Stiller & Meara throughout the 1960s — despite Anne having no ambitions to work in comedy. “The last thing I wanted was to be a comedienne,” she told PEOPLE in 1977.

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

“It occurred to us that we were an unlikely couple,” Jerry told PEOPLE. “People would say to Anne, ‘Heh, you’re married to him?’ I thought we could use it.”

Stiller & Meara became popular in the 1960s, appearing on sketch shows — including 36 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. But in the 1970s, they broke up their act in order to save their marriage.

“I love Anne, but if I had depended on her in my professional life, I would have lost her as a wife,” Jerry told PEOPLE about their decision to pursue independent careers. “We felt like two guys.”

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

Despite dissolving their comedy partnership, the couple performed together from time to time over the years. The pair wrote and starred in numerous radio commercials, including those for Blue Nun wine — which were so successful, according to the Chicago Tribune, that sales increased by 500%. They briefly had their own sitcom in the 1980s and reunited on-screen in Archie Bunker's Place and The King of Queens, where their characters married during the series finale in 2007.

“We did miss our back and forth,” Anne told the Los Angeles Times in 2010. “I love improvising with him.”

Anne was nominated for Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy and Tony Awards

After the split of Stiller & Meara, Anne went on to have a successful career as a television and film actress. She had dozens of onscreen appearances over the decades, taking on both comedic and dramatic roles, with several earning her award nominations.

In the 1970s, Anne stared in her own short-lived television series Kate McShane, which was about a tough-talking lawyer. It nabbed a Primetime Emmy nomination for her performance in 1976. The next year, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her recurring role on the sitcom Rhoda.

Then, in the 1980s, Anne stared as Veronica Rooney on the hit sitcom Archie Bunker’s Place, a role that added two more Emmy nods to her roster. She won a Writers Guild of America Award in 1984 for co-writing the TV 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 also included recurring roles on the soap opera All My Children and appearing as Mary Brady, mom to Steve (David Eigenberg), on Sex and the City. She continued to work until her death in 2015.

Jerry starred on Seinfeld and The King of Queens

Jerry’s career slowed after the end of Stiller & Meara, with the comedian making appearances on game shows while “trying to cope with the fact that my wife was doing well,” he told PEOPLE. But in the 1990s, he experienced a resurgence in fame thanks to his role as Frank Constanza on Seinfeld.

But his iconic Seinfeld role almost never happened: Jerry initially passed on the job because he was busy with a Broadway show.

“They said they want you to play the father of George Costanza on Seinfeld, and I said, ‘Who’s Seinfeld?’ ” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “They said it is a very funny show and it is on the air right now. And I said, ‘Well, I am in a Broadway show. I am about to rehearse. I pass.’ ”

But Jerry eventually agreed to take on the role and played the elder Costanza from 1993 to 1998. He earned a Primetime Emmy nomination in 1997 for his performance. After his run on Seinfeld ended, Jerry planned to retire — but was convinced by Kevin James to join the cast of The King of Queens. He played Arthur Spooner for the show’s nine seasons from 1998 to 2007.

“He made things funny and come alive that weren’t on the page,” Leah Remini, who played Arthur’s daughter Carrie Heffernan, told PEOPLE about her late costar in 2020. “Jerry was a star, a legend, that is true, but he never acted like it.”

Jerry and Anne both appeared in movies with their son Ben

Over the years, Ben appeared on-screen with his parents on several occasions — starting with his very first film role in 1987 when he starred opposite his father in Hot Pursuit. Ben continued to work with his father in some of his most iconic films, including Zoolander (2001), The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and Zoolander 2 (2016), which was Jerry’s final on-screen performance before his death in 2020.

Ben also worked with his mother, as Anne appeared on-screen with her son in Night at the Museum (2006). Ben, Jerry and Anne appeared in the film Heavyweights (1995), and Amy joined Ben and their parents in Highway to Hell (1992).

The experience of working alongside his parents helped shape Ben as an actor and comedian. He told Lufthansa Magazine that both of his parents taught him “dedication and passion” in his work, but it was Ben’s mother who influenced his comedy the most.

“Obviously, my dad is a huge person in my life. I love him,” he told Parade after Anne’s death in 2015. “But my mom was the person that I most looked up to for her point of view, her humor.”

Anne died in May 2015 and Jerry died in 2020

On May 23, 2015, Anne died at 85 years old.

Ben opened up about his mother’s death to Parade in February 2016 — when he said he was still coming to terms with the loss.

“I’m still processing it,” he told Parade. “It affects me constantly. You know, you’re going through your life, everything is great and then like, Pow! She’s not here. It’s hard for me.”

He added: “I feel a connection as deeply to my mom now as I did when she was here. I really felt with her that she wasn’t just going away, because she believed, as I do, that after we die there is something more.”

Nearly five years after the death of his wife, Jerry died on May 11, 2020, at the age of 92.

Both Ben and his older sister, Amy, were able to be with their father in his final days — something Ben told The New Yorker he was “very, very grateful for.” Later that month, Ben opened up about the loss of his father on Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist.

“He was an irreplaceable person,” Ben said. “I knew that but when something like this happens you really feel it. And I know for him he loved doing what he did and he loved connecting with people.”

Ben felt like his parents were “connected again” after Jerry’s death

Following Jerry’s death, Ben found comfort in the idea that his parents were reconnected in the afterlife.

“They found each other and they were there for each other,” Ben said about his parents on an episode of the Today show in May 2020. “Not to get too sappy, but I feel like they’re connected again.”

Ben continued to reminisce about his parents’ love story — remarking how he imagined his father with a “big smile” after being reunited with his mother, who died five years prior.

“They connected and fell in love and were married for 62 years,” he said. “They just had a beautiful relationship. So I think for him, this would have just been — I think he has a big smile somewhere.”

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