Anne Meara

Anne Meara began performing with the improvisational comedy company The Compass Players, which later became The Second City, before forming the comedy duo Stiller and Meara with her husband, Jerry Stiller. The duo performed in New York nightclubs beginning in 1961 and became regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show, making 36 appearances, as well as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and other television programs. In 1963, they released the comedy album Presenting America's New Comedy Sensation: Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara Live at The Hungry I. During the 1970s, they also wrote and performed radio commercials for Blue Nun Wine and appeared in the television program Take Five with Stiller & Meara (1977–1978).

Meara made her Off-Broadway debut in Ulysses in Nighttown in 1958. Her early theater credits included A Month in the Country and The Good Woman of Setzuan (1956), Miss Lonelyhearts (1957), As You Like It (1958) and The House of Blue Leaves (1971). She later appeared in Spookhouse (1984), Romeo and Juliet and Eastern Standard (1988), and Anna Christie (1993). She performed in Love, Loss and What I Wore at the Westside Theatre in 2011. Her additional stage credits included A... My Name Is Alice (1984), for which she was a writer, After-Play (1995), in which she served as playwright and performer, and Down the Garden Paths (2000), for which she was the playwright.

Meara's early television credits included The Greatest Gift (1954–1955), The Philco Television Playhouse (1954), The DuPont Show of the Month (1959), Ninotchka (1960), Linus! The Lion Hearted (1964–1965), Dames at Sea (1971), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1971–1972), Love, American Style (1971–1973), The Paul Lynde Show (1973), The Corner Bar (1973) and Medical Center (1974). She starred in the CBS series Kate McShane in 1975 and received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1976. She played Sally Gallagher on Rhoda from 1976 to 1977 and appeared in Love Boat from 1979 to 1983.

From 1979 to 1983, Meara played Veronica Rooney on Archie Bunker's Place, appearing in 52 episodes. Her other television work during this period included HBO Sneak Previews, which she co-starred in with Stiller. She co-wrote the teleplay for the CBS television movie The Other Woman (1983) with Lila Garrett. In 1986, she starred as Anne Bender in The Stiller and Meara Show, a sitcom for which she also received a co-writer credit. Her subsequent television credits included Saturday Night Live (1987), ALF (1987–1989), CBS Schoolbreak Special (1987–1989), Murder, She Wrote (1988–1993), Monsters (1990), The General Motors Playwrights Theater (1991), Shalom Sesame (1991), American Playhouse (1991), All My Children (1992–1999), CBS Schoolbreak Special (1992), In the Heat of the Night (1994), Great Performances: The Mother (1994), Murphy Brown (1994), Homicide: Life on the Street (1996), Jitters (1997) and After Play (1999), for which she was a writer and cast member.

Meara's film career included The Out-of-Towners and Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), Irish Whiskey Rebellion (1972), Nasty Habits (1977), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and Fame (1980). She appeared in In Our Hands (1984), The Longshot and The Perils of P.K. (1986), My Little Girl (1987), That's Adequate (1989), Awakenings (1990), Highway to Hell and Through an Open Window (1992), and So You Want to Be an Actor (1993). Her 1990s film credits also included Reality Bites and The Search for One-Eye Jimmy (1994), Heavyweights and Kiss of Death (1995), The Daytrippers (1996), The Thin Pink Line and Southie (1998), and The Diary of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man, Judy Berlin, Brooklyn Thrill Killers and A Fish in the Bathtub (1999).

In 2000, Meara appeared in Amy Stiller's Breast and The Independent. Her subsequent film credits included Zoolander, Keeping It Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch and Get Well Soon (2001); Like Mike and The Yard Sale (2002); Crooked Lines (2003); Chump Change (2004); Night at the Museum (2006); The Mirror and The Shallow End of the Ocean (2007); and When the Evening Comes, The Queen of Greenwich Village and Another Harvest Moon (2009). She appeared in Simpler Times (2014), a short film with Jerry Stiller, and voiced Winnie in Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014).

Meara also appeared in Oz (1999–2002), playing Aunt Brenda O'Reily, and The King of Queens, where she played Mary Finnegan in 1999 and Veronica Olchin from 2003 to 2007. Her other television credits included What Makes a Family, Ed and Will & Grace (2001); Sex and the City (2002–2004); Good Morning, Miami and Charlie Lawrence (2003); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2004–2012); Four Kings (2006); Mercy (2009); Wonder Pets! (2009–2010); and Gravity (2010). She also appeared in the television pilot Rip City in 2011. Beginning in October 2010, she starred with Stiller in the Yahoo! web series Stiller & Meara, produced by Red Hour Digital.

As a writer, Meara wrote the Off-Broadway comedy After-Play in 1995. She also maintained the New York-focused online blog Mr. Beller's Neighborhood -- New York City Stories in 2009. Her writing credits included the teleplay for The Other Woman (1983), the sitcom The Stiller and Meara Show (1986), After Play (1999) and the stage productions A... My Name Is Alice (1984) and Down the Garden Paths (2000).

She died on May 23, 2015.