March 20: The Straight Man

Carl Reiner, the straight man to Mel Brooks’ “Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man” and a major influence upon American comedy as it ripened through the early years of television, was born in the Bronx on this date in 1922. Reiner worked as writer and actor on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows and, based on that experience, developed The Dick Van Dyke Show, an iconic television series that made comedy-writing and the television industry look exciting and “easy” to the baby-boom generation. Reiner also directed and co-wrote four of Steve Martin’s early films, The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, and All of Me. His wife of 64 years, Estelle Lebost, delivered the “I’ll have what she’s having” line following Meg Ryan’s faked-orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally — directed by the Reiners’ son, Rob Reiner.

“The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh.” —Carl Reiner