Ben Stiller examined his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara’s enduring legacy — and the downside of their fame — within the 2025 documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.
Jerry and his wife weren’t only partners in life, but in addition they formed a well-liked comedy duo that performed in major venues across the U.S. throughout Ben and his sister Amy Stiller’s childhood within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s.
In Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, Ben admitted that his parents’ connection was volatile and that he remembered hearing “raised voices” often in his childhood.
“They were very close but they were also very different, too,” he explained.
Keep scrolling for more on Jerry and Meara’s life and careers.
Who Was Jerry Stiller?
Jerry served within the U.S. Army in World War II and returned home to check at Syracuse University. He took part in various Recent York theatre productions within the early ‘50s, before meeting Meara in 1953.
The 2 were married the next 12 months and shortly began performing together as a comedic duo. Jerry and Meara were among the many earliest members of the famed Second City improv troupe in Chicago, which subsequently launched the careers of Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Amber Ruffin, amongst countless others.
Jerry and Meara became recurring guests on The Ed Sullivan Show within the Nineteen Sixties and hosted their very own short-form series that aired after Saturday Night Live in syndication.
Apart from his comedy team, Jerry memorably played George Constanza’s curmudgeonly father Frank Costanza on the classic TV sitcom Seinfeld, for which he earned an Emmy Award nomination. Other notable roles included starring opposite Kevin James as Arthur Spooner in The King of Queens and doing voiceover work for Disney.
Stiller and Meara in June 2012. Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Jerry steadily appeared in his son Ben’s projects, with notable roles in each Zoolander movies and Heavyweights, amongst others.
Ben announced his father’s death at age 92 from natural causes in May 2020 and paid tribute to his comedic legacy.
“I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes,” he tweeted. “He was a fantastic dad and grandfather, and essentially the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will probably be greatly missed. Love you Dad.”
Who Was Anne Meara?
The comedian had a really difficult childhood, as her mother Mary Dempsey died by suicide when Meara was only 10 years old.
As a teen, Meara studied under famed acting teacher Uta Hagen at Recent York City’s prestigious Recent School. Nevertheless, she credited her future husband Jerry with convincing her to try comedy.
“Jerry began us being a comedy team,” she revealed. “He at all times thought I could be a fantastic comedy partner.”
Apart from her comedy team along with her husband, Meara was nominated for 4 Emmy Awards throughout her life. She won a Writers Guild of America Award for cowriting the 1983 TV movie The Other Woman.
Like her husband, Meara worked extensively in TV sitcoms, including Rhoda, Archie Bunker’s Place and Alf throughout the Nineteen Seventies and ‘80s. She memorably played Steve Brady’s mother Mary on Sex and the City and joined her husband Jerry on The King of Queens.
Ben Stiller is examining his role as a father in his latest documentary about his parents, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost. Ben, 59, spends the vast majority of the documentary revisiting his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara’s ups and downs throughout their 61-year marriage before Anne’s death at age 85 in 2015. The actor […]
Meara faced quite a few health issues throughout her life, along with her son Ben later revealing that she struggled with alcoholism.
“My mother had issues across her life with alcoholism,” Ben acknowledged in 2023. “She got sober and really explored that stuff … She had a lot trauma [in her life] and the thing that I’m so grateful for is that, I feel so many individuals who live with alcoholism of their families, it’s never handled. It’s never, ever explored and even talked about.”
He went on, “What I’m grateful for is she really delved into that in her therapy. For somebody who’s a functioning alcoholic, it’s principally that you simply’re attempting to navigate that since it’s not dramatic.”
Meara died at age 85 in May 2015 after suffering multiple strokes.
What Did Ben Stiller Say About His Parents?
Ben explored his complicated relationship together with his parents within the 2025 Apple TV documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, which premiered on the Recent York Film Festival in October 2025.
Within the film, Ben opened up concerning the resentment he felt towards his father Jerry for not tackling his mom’s alcoholism head-on.
“When [my mom] was drinking, my dad never really knew handle it,” Stiller explained. “I feel he loved her a lot and he was so committed to her. Also the act and what they did together was so necessary, that he needed to work out cope with that on his own. But I feel I resented him for not acknowledging it to us.”
Ben said that he and sister Amy at all times knew that their father “loved us greater than anything,” though it was at all times painful to see their mother struggle.
Anne Meara, Jerry Stiller, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor. Patrick McMullan
“I feel he was just attempting to work out navigate that and I got so offended at him for not being there for us but I don’t even think I understood that for awhile,” he recalled.
Nevertheless, Ben and his wife, Christine Taylor, also reflected on the best way Meara was in a position to empathize and support them once she got sober.
“She would see me as a brand new mother, during those moments where it was crazy and frenetic, and tell me how great a job I used to be doing,” Taylor said. “It was a approach to make me feel so good about what I used to be doing, but [also] her acknowledging what she couldn’t do.”
Talking to Time concerning the documentary, Ben stressed how necessary it was to indicate that his parents’ fame was a double-edged sword.
“When people see the movie, you may see how organic it was for my sister and I to be a component of this world,” Stiller noted. “It was our reality and it’s what we grew up in and we loved it once we were kids. The flip side was, it took our parents away from us, which any creative endeavor does. You may have a creative parent, a part of them goes to be dedicated to their creativity, in the event that they’re an actual artist. They will’t deny that.”
When you or someone you already know is fighting substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357)