Authors: Jerry Stiller
Anne looked at me, wondering if this was really happening.
“Yes,” she said, her maternity dress ballooning over her slightly parted legs.
“How long have you two been married?”
“Twelve years,” I said.
“Twelve years, hah! May I feel your stomach?” he asked Anne.
“What?” Anne said.
“I want to feel your stomach.”
Anne looked at me. She seemed to be saying, I’m your wife, don’t let him do this to me. Is he some kind of kinky guy?
“Go ahead,” I said, turning my head slightly away as if I couldn’t bear to watch.
How badly do I want this apartment? I was thinking. And why does he want to feel my wife’s tummy? Why would I subject Anne to this?
Anne shrugged and threw her head back as if to say, “Be my guest.”
His hand came gently down upon Anne’s stomach. He held it there a few seconds.
“You really are pregnant, aren’t you,” he said.
“You mean you didn’t believe me?” I said.
“Oh, Mr. Stiller, you don’t know what people will do in this town to
get an apartment. They’ll say or do anything. Okay, you got the apartment,” he said to us. “When can I see you on television?”
We gave him the date of our next
Sullivan
. We signed the lease and he wished us luck.
A few weeks after we moved into our beautiful new apartment, Ben was born at Mount Sinai. I had just left the hospital to pick up Amy at pre-school when Anne delivered. She had an emergency C-section. Eddie Meara was notified and was with Anne at the time. Eleven days later, Anne and I did the
Sullivan
show. Ed permitted us to do one of our “Mrs. Santa Claus” sketches, updated. It went over fine.
Some months later, on Johnny Carson’s
Tonight Show
, while we were sitting down chatting with Johnny, he asked what it was like living in New York City. Anne said, “We have cockroaches. They’re so friendly and big, we call them by their first names.”
The next day we got a call from Mr. Brendel. “How come you said my apartment has cockroaches?” he asked indignantly.
“Because it does,” I humbly replied.
“You hurt my feelings, Mr. Stiller.”
“We never mentioned you or the building,” I said. “I’m really sorry if you were upset.”
“I love your act,” he said, and hung up.
The next day a very well-dressed man in a dark business suit, white shirt, and tie rang our doorbell. He was carrying a black valise.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m the exterminator. The renting agent sent me over to take care of anything in the apartment.”
“You’re dressed like a Madison Avenue executive,” I said.
“The renting agent’s orders. He wanted you to know he loves your work and told me I should dress appropriately. Incidentally, I saw that show, the one where you mentioned cockroaches. You’re right, everybody in New York has them. I just came from”—and he whispered the name of a prominent show business personality who lived on Fifth Avenue.
“He’s got them too?”
“Yes, him.”
The name he’d whispered was … Johnny …
• • •
It was close to Thanksgiving 1966. Ben was one year old, Amy five. Ed Meara was in Boston attending the American Radiator Company’s convention. Anne and I were busy writing material for the Perry Como Christmas show when Anne got a call from Dr. Julian Aroesty of Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.
Anne’s face was frozen. I knew something terrible had happened.
“What is it?” I asked.
“My father’s had a heart attack.”
We packed a few things, flew the shuttle to Boston, and took a cab to the hospital. Ed was wide awake as we entered his room. He was being given oxygen.
“How are you, Totsie,” he said to his daughter with a joyful smile.
It’s the Irish shit, I’m thinking. It’s a re-enactment of every Pat O’Brien, Jimmy Cagney, Warner Bros. movie ever made. They laugh at death. This isn’t funny to me. Why can’t they admit pain or suffering? It helps a doctor know what to do.
“How are you doing, Jerry boy?”
Ed started to sit up.
“Sit back,” I said. “Don’t move.”
“Here, let me fix your pillow,” Anne said.
I told myself to act happy. I envisioned myself as Myron Cohen doing three garment-industry stories the Irish would love. But I contained myself.
“What happened?” Anne asked.
“We were at the Statler. There must have been ten of us at the table, and I just got this pain. They took me to my room, and Dr. Aroesty was in the hotel. He got me into the hospital right away. They gave me oxygen. Right now I just feel a little weak.”
“Are you eating?” Anne asked.
“I’m not too hungry. I’ve been trying to lose weight, you know. Now’s a good time to do it. How’s Amy, my little darling?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“And Ben?”
“They’re okay,” Anne said.
“Who’s with them?”
“We’ve got someone taking care of them.”
“You gotta take it easy and get some rest,” I said.
“I miss the kids,” Ed said. “I feel a little tired.”
A nurse came in and motioned to us. We followed her out. “Dr. Aroesty would like to talk to you.”
Dr. Aroesty, a fortyish man with sensitive eyes, told us the prognosis was not good. “We’ll treat him with medication and see what happens.”
For five days we watched Ed’s condition steadily improve. Anne and I remained at his bedside past visiting hours, kibitzing with the staff and other patients. The floor took on a festive atmosphere. Ed’s spirits perked.
“These two are doing the Perry Como Christmas show,” Ed announced to everyone within earshot.
“We’re not doing the show, Dad,” Anne said. “We’ve canceled. It’s more important we’re here with you.”
Anne read Ed a letter from Perry Como saying how he was sorry we’d had to bow out, and hoping Anne’s father would be better soon.
“Why the hell
don’t
you do the show?” Ed said. “I told everybody in Rockville Centre you were going to be on.”
During the following day, Ed’s condition worsened. He was having trouble breathing and would periodically lose consciousness.
Anne and I stayed close.
“How’m I doing?” Ed would whisper when he could get the words out.
A few days later Dr. Aroesty said, “I need your permission to perform a tracheotomy. It will help his breathing.”
Anne agreed.
The sight of Eddie Meara with a breathing device got to me. Anne handled it. She talked a little louder to make him aware that we were nearby.
“Jerry’s going to shave you in the morning,” she told Ed. She fully believed my shaving him would make him feel better.
Francis Mannion, a Paulist priest, quietly introduced himself in the corridor near the nurses’ station. He said he’d been informed of Ed’s condition. “How Catholic is he?” Father Mannion asked.
“Real Catholic,” Anne said.
“I know who you are,” Father Mannion said. “You give us lots of laughs at the rectory. I know this is tough, but how would your dad feel if I said a few prayers?”
Anne got angry. “You’re not going to say any last rites. I won’t have him listening to that.”
I took Father Mannion aside and told him this was not the right moment.
He said, “Jerry, when I ask people if they want the last rites, I’m doing it for the family. The person dying doesn’t even know what I’m saying, but it’s important that everyone knows he died in a state of grace. You know what I do when I’m outside the room where someone’s dying? I make jokes.”
He told me the one about the drunken Irishman falling down a flight of stairs with a bottle of whiskey in his back pocket, discovering his pants dripping red, and thanking God it was only blood. To me, it wasn’t funny, but I understood his point.
“You sure you don’t want me to go in?” he asked Anne once again.
“Just wait,” Anne said.
Anne asked her dad if he wanted Father Mannion, and Ed said, “Not at this time.”
Around 11 o’clock the next morning, Ed went into a coma, and Anne had Father Mannion give him last rites.
We had been in Boston ten days and never thought he would die.
“You’ve got to get him a good obituary,” Anne said to me. “Go downstairs and call Dave Rush and tell him, if he wants to keep doing PR for us, he’s got to get my father a decent obit. I don’t want one of those death notices in small type, you understand? I want all his friends on the Island to know.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. I ran to the lobby to make the phone call to Dave Rush.
“Dave, I’m in Boston.”
“What are you doing in Boston?”
“My father died. I mean Anne’s father.”
“I’m sorry,” Dave said.
“David, we want an obit.”
“That’s not PR,” he said.
“I know, but I want it anyway. I want you to call whoever you know to get Ed Meara a decent obit.”
“What can I say about him?” Dave asked.
“He baby-sat Amy on the road when we were playing clubs.”
“I can’t put down baby-sitter in an obit,” Dave said.
“He helped us out with the rent when we couldn’t pay. He took us to dinner every Friday at Vorst’s Restaurant.” I knew I was running on empty.
“That’s not enough,” Dave said.
“Make him our road manager. He was with us in Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee. Give him a title.”
“What else?”
“He did our lighting,” I said.
“How old was he?”
“Seventy-three.”
“And he was doing lights? They’re not going to believe that.”
“Okay, how about this: He wrote all our material.”
“Are you kidding?” Dave’s voice lit up as if he had just stumbled onto a major scoop. I knew I’d finally hit home.
“Every single piece you’ve ever seen on
Sullivan
was written by him.” I was on a roll. I sensed that Dave really believed me, or wanted to believe me.
“He wrote all that? Okay, I’ll call the papers. Tell Annie how sorry I am.”
“Okay, Dave. Thanks.” I hung up.
I rushed back and told Anne, “I got the obit.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told him Ed wrote all our material.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“It was the only way we could get it in the papers.”
Next day an obituary notice appeared in both
The New York Times
and the
Daily News
, with a picture. The one in the
Times
began, “E. J. Meara, creator of comedy material for the team of Stiller and Meara …”
The wake was held at Macken’s in Rockville Centre, Long Island. Mr. Macken had been Ed’s poker buddy, and we thought he’d be Ed’s undertaker of choice. The wake, attended by the Knights of Columbus and scores of friends and relatives and employees of the American Radiator Company, was a happy one.
At one point Gene Brown, another poker buddy, drew Anne and myself aside and said, “Jerry, Anne, I read the obituary and I wanted to cry. He was a great guy, your dad was. He used to tell me he took you out to dinner and once in a while paid the rent, but he never let on that he wrote all your material. God bless him.”
For the next year, Anne and I would receive requests from colleges and from the New York Public Library, asking if we would donate the comedy material written by E. J. Meara to their archives.
Ed left us with wonderful memories and his blessings. He was catholic with a small c, meaning worldly. As an example of his beliefs, when Amy was going to nursery school at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, Ed would sometimes pick her up in the afternoon. He’d wait in the lobby until she came out. He always wore a hat, which is mandatory only in an Orthodox or Conservative Synagogue. Rabbi Klein once passed by and greeted Ed.
“Why are you wearing a hat, Mr. Meara?” Ed explained he was in a synagogue and did not want to seem disrespectful. “But this is Reform, Mr. Meara. It’s optional.” Ed kept his hat on.
Ed left Anne and me with the feeling that we could make it. From that point on, our Riverside Drive apartment turned into a writing factory. Inspiration came from all places and at all hours.
One day I was in the playground near our apartment with the kids. Anne was shopping. We’d just been booked into Lou Walters’ Latin Quarter, long a fixture of the Broadway nightclub scene. In my mind, this was the dream come true. The marquee on 48th Street would herald our names as headliners. This was where Sophie Tucker, Harry Richman, Joe E. Lewis, and Jack Durant had played. We had made it.
I was sitting on the park bench, adapting our material for the Latin Quarter. Ben and Amy were climbing the monkey bars with another little boy. The boy’s father, sitting nearby with a stroller, asked if I was Jerry Stiller of Stiller and Meara.
I said yes. He had a newspaper in his hand. “You’re opening at the Latin Quarter?”
The opening was a week away, and the day before I had gone into Cye Martin’s on Broadway and bought a $200 tux, a dress shirt with ruffles, cuff links with real stones, and a set of studs. I wanted to look elegant.
“Who does your hair?” the father asked.
“My barber,” I said.
“I’m the world’s second-best barber,” he said, hauling out some newspaper clippings.
“I was just in a contest worldwide,” he said. “I was chosen second best in the entire world. I’d like to do your hair.”
Sure enough, there was his picture in a Paris newspaper that hailed him as
le deuxième barbier du monde
.
I said, “That’s too bad.” I wanted to say, “That’s terrible.” What if somebody told me I was the second-best comedian in the world? It’s not a compliment.
“Yes,” he said. “You’d be surprised how people respond to that. I can’t put that up in the shop. People get upset. They feel funny when they see it. But never mind all that. I’d love to do your hair. It’ll look great. You’ll have it for your opening.”
Whatever it was—pity, identification—I made an appointment to go to his shop on Third Avenue two days before our opening. We had been rehearsing all morning. I was exhausted.
“Just sit down, I’m going to make you look great,” he said. I closed my eyes and fell asleep in the chair. When I awoke and looked in the mirror, my hair was jet black. He had also straightened it and had given me a razor cut. I didn’t recognize myself.