Anne Meara was born on 20 September 1929 in Brooklyn. Ninety-seven years on, her memory does not pass only through her son Ben Stiller. She was an actor, comedian and writer, half of Stiller and Meara, then a career of her own spanning more than six decades.

She studied acting and joined the Compass Players, the improvisation company from which Second City also grew. She met Jerry Stiller; they married and worked together. Their dialogue often used the contrast between her Irish Catholic background and Stiller’s Jewish family. They were frequent guests on The Ed Sullivan Show.

After the duo slowed, Meara continued on stage, in film and on television. She played Veronica Rooney, the bar’s cook, on Archie Bunker’s Place. She had a recurring role as Mary Brady on Sex and the City. She appeared in Fame (1980) and, with Stiller, on The King of Queens.

The Television Academy records four Emmy nominations: Kate McShane (1976), Archie Bunker’s Place (1981 and 1982) and Homicide: Life on the Street (1997). She received a Tony nomination for Anna Christie (1993). She wrote plays, including After-Play, and taught.

Her career is not reducible to marriage. Jerry Stiller was a stage and life partner; Ben and Amy Stiller are their children. The anniversary keeps the tally of roles, nominations and scripts, not a celebrity family tree.

Meara died on 23 May 2015 in New York, aged 85. This account does not reproduce copyrighted routines. Ed Sullivan, Archie Bunker and Sex and the City are enough names from the résumé.

Ninety-seven years since her birth recall an artist who moved from the improvisation club to the studio sitcom. Brooklyn, the Compass Players and four Emmy nominations remain career facts, not family ornament.

Image: Anne Meara, 1975, CBS Television, public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Source consulted: Anne Meara — Television Academy.