{"product_id":"9780743211468","title":"Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara","description":"The current generation knows him as the serenity-seeking Frank Costanza from \u003ci\u003eSeinfeld.\u003c\/i\u003e An older generation knows him as one-half of the comedy team Stiller and Meara. But, as his memoir, \u003ci\u003eMarried to Laughter,\u003c\/i\u003e reveals, Jerry Stiller has had a lifelong love affair with entertainment. \u003cbr\u003e Growing up during the Depression in Brooklyn and on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Jerry Stiller discovered the power of comedy when, as a child, he saw Eddie Cantor transform an audience. Jerry's father often took him to vaudeville performances, where Jerry decided that he, too, wanted to make people laugh. He studied drama at Syracuse University, where a charismatic professor inspired Jerry to believe that he could achieve his dream and become a successful actor. After Syracuse, Jerry returned to New York to begin a life in the theater. \u003cbr\u003e Jerry soon met Anne Meara. Even before he fell in love with her, he knew she was a remarkable person. At first they encouraged each other in their separate performances, but eventually they began doing a comedy act in the coffeehouses of New York's Greenwich Village. They created a brilliantly successful act with two characters who were exaggerated versions of themselves. Before long, they were regulars on \u003ci\u003eThe Ed Sullivan Show,\u003c\/i\u003e the most popular television program of the day. Stiller and Meara was a smash hit. \u003cbr\u003e But Jerry's first love has always been the theater, and he writes with fondness and charm about his nearly fifty years in show business -- from summer stock to the early days of Joe Papp's pioneering Shakespeare in the Park, from his Broadway performance in \u003ci\u003eHurlyburly\u003c\/i\u003e to his roles in such films as \u003ci\u003eThe Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Ritz, Seize the Day,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHairspray.\u003c\/i\u003e He describes the genesis of the hugely successful Blue Nun radio commercials that he and Anne recorded, the first of many award-winning advertisements they would make together. \u003cbr\u003e Jerry takes us inside his life offstage, describing with great candor his personal and professional neuroses, including some unusual experiences in therapy. He recounts hilarious stories about the Stiller family and tells wonderful tales about such friends and colleagues as Walter Matthau, Colleen Dewhurst, Mike Nichols, F. Murray Abraham, and Henny Youngman. \u003cbr\u003e But most of all, he describes life with Anne, showing us his admiration for her as a performer and describing how she gave him the insight into acting that he'd long sought. \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMarried to Laughter\u003c\/i\u003e is a great love story about two people who found their place in show business without ever losing sight of each other.","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47107481305328,"sku":"9780743211468","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780743211468_p0.jpg?v=1763633791","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780743211468","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}