bransonglobe.com ENTERTAINMENT • REINER Continued from page 16 known for rushing to his bedroom in the afternoon so he could be near a TV when the show was on. “Although it was a collaborative effort,” Van Dyke later wrote, ”everything about the show stemmed from his (Reiner’s) endlessly and enviably fascinating, funny, and fertile brain and trickled down to the rest of us.” The story line had Petrie as the head writer for “The Alan Brady Show,” a comedy-variety series not unlike “Your Show of Shows,” in which Reiner, as Brady, was the egocentric star. Petrie’s fellow writers were character actors Morey Amsterdam as Buddy Sorrell and Rose Marie as Sally Rogers. It was an early parody of the Caesar show, which would later be dramatized in the film “My Favorite Year” and Neil Simon’s play “Laughter on the 23rd Floor.” Besides acting in and producing the “Van Dyke” series, Reiner wrote or co-wrote dozens of episodes. Although the show was the best of good clean fun, it wasn’t clean enough for network censors. Reiner often battled network officials over the sleeping arrangements of Rob and his wife; the Petries slept in twin beds. He wanted them to sleep in a double bed. Reiner joined the classic comedy revue “Your Show of Shows” in 1950 after performing in Broadway plays. Much of Reiner’s early work came as a “second banana” — although, as Caesar once put it, “Such bananas don’t grow on trees.” He performed in sketches — satirizing everything from foreign films to rock ‘n’ roll — and added his talents to a writing team that included Brooks, Simon, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart. “As second banana,” he told TV Guide, “I had a chance to do just about everything a performer can ever get to do. If it came off well, I got all the applause. If it didn’t, the show was blamed.” Reiner was the father of actor-director Rob Reiner, who starred as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law on “All in the Family” and directed “When Harry Met Sally...” Rob Reiner said in a tweet Tuesday that his “heart is hurting. He was my guiding light.” Carl Reiner was born in 1922, in New York City’s Bronx borough, one of two sons of Jewish immigrants. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood, where he learned to mimic voices and tell jokes. After high school, Reiner attended drama school, then joined a small theater group. He married his wife, Estelle, in 1943. Besides son Rob, the couple had another son, Lucas, a film director, and a daughter, Sylvia, a psychoanalyst and author. Estelle Reiner, who died in 2008, had a small role in Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally...” — as the woman who overhears Meg Ryan play-acting in a restaurant and says, “I’ll have what she’s having.” July 1 - 2, 2020 • 17 In this April 7, 2017 file photo, Carl Reiner, left, and his son Rob Reiner pose together following their hand and footprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
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