Ben Stiller is donating the career archives of his industry legend parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, to the National Comedy Center, the museum announced Tuesday.
The move came just ahead of “Nothing Is Lost,” the Stiller-directed documentary about his Hollywood family, is due to premiere on Apple TV Friday. The archives will be exhibited in the United States museum dedicated to comedy.
“Knowing my parents’ body of work is preserved at the National Comedy Center means a great deal, because the material they left behind was not just a gift for my family, but for anyone who wants to understand comedy as a creative process,” Stiller said. “They would have been very proud to know that the National Comedy Center is bringing their archive to life in a way that can inspire and educate future generations.”
Stiller and Meara became a renowned comedy pair coming up in the 1960s and ’70s through appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Carson” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” Separately, Meara was a TV writer, actress and Broadway performer who netted multiple Emmy and Tony Award nominations through her career. Stiller played many well-known sitcom characters – most famously in “Seinfeld” and “King of Queens.”
“Stiller and Meara broke ground by mining their own lives for moments rooted in honesty and affection,” Journey Gunderson, Executive Director of the National Comedy Center, said. “Their work was more than funny; it mainstreamed conversations about cultural difference, interfaith dating, gender equity and the loosening of traditional relationship roles in a way that was quietly revolutionary.”
Stiller and Meara’s archives join a long list of legends’ work that has been curated by the National Comedy Archive, a list that includes George Carlin’s handwritten joke file, records of Lenny Bruce’s obscenity trials and hand-annotated manuscripts, Joan Rivers’ card catalog of nearly 70,000 jokes, and production records from landmark series like “I Love Lucy,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “In Living Color” and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
