Biography
Achieving prolonged success in Hollywood could never be described as easy. To do it switching regularly between gross-out comedy and art-house drama is harder still. And to do it as an actor, writer, director and producer must surely qualify you as someone very special. Ben Stiller did this. Not only that, but he also managed to escape from the shadow of parents who were both nationally beloved entertainers, a problem that has left so many before him wallowing in a mire of thwarted expectations and bitter disappointment.
He was born Benjamin Stiller on the 30th of October, 1965, in New York City, the second child of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, daughter Amy having arrived two years earlier. Anne, born in 1929, had come to motherhood fairly late, due to a burgeoning comedy partnership with her husband. Being a couple of mixed religion (Anne had converted to Jerry's Jewish faith at marriage but was raised Irish Catholic), they had formed an act playing upon their differences and, as the loving but waspish Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, had become hugely popular. Indeed they had a residency on the Ed Sullivan Show, appearing every two months and eventually appearing no less than 36 times. |
