Anne Meara, a comedy film and veteran TV actress, has died on May 23 at age 85, according to a statement through a representative of her son Ben Stiller. No details about the conditions of her death were delivered. His husband Jerry Stiller, her children Ben and Amy, and many grandchildren survive the New York-born comedian.
Meara, who had been a regular on shows such as Sex and the City and The King of Queens, was married with Jerry Stiller for 61 long years and "worked together almost as long," based on the statement.
Meara was born a New Yorker on Sept. 20, 1929. The 23-year-old aspiring actress started her career in supposed summer stock theater on 1953. She became a part of the cast of short-term NBC soap opera The Greatest Gift in 1954, according to her profile on MTV.com.
Meara and Stiller, both comedians met in 1953 at an agent's office and got married a couple of months later, acted together in the comedy troupe of Compass Players, a forerunner to the Second City group, before establishing their own double act.
Meara became known for her opposites-attract comedy routine with husband Jerry Stiller on American television during the 1960s, shooting 36 appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
Their work included parodies such as a dialogue with the famous Jonah in the Bible after his face-off with the whale and spoofs of TV advertisements.
A great deal of their comedy acts was marriage-centered and ethnicity - she was of Irish, he was of Jewish culture and motivated on height - Stiller had measurements of 5-foot-4 (1.62 meters), while Meara had always been taller.
During the early 1970s, the couple started doing acts separately. She performed her off-Broadway debut in 1971 with John Guare's award-winning play The House of Blue Leaves. She finished the movies Lovers and Other Strangers, Fame, and The Out-of-Towners and had a twelve-month run playing the lead character on the CBS television program "Kate McShane," first network drama to feature a woman lawyer.
Meara was two times nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting character on Archie Bunker's Place along with two other Emmy nominations in 1997 for her guest-starring part on Homicide. She won a Writers Guild Award as a co-author of the 1983 TV motion picture The Other Woman.
Meara appeared also on the film Reality Bites directed by her son Ben Stiller, and co-starred with him in 2006's Night at the Museum.
