Carl and Rob Reiner: Some Big Shoes to Fill

On April 7, two Reiners added their footprints to the forecourt of Hollywood’s Chinese Theater, thus becoming the first father-son duo to make a concrete impression upon the entertainment industry. (Sorry about that!) It was an honor long overdue. Without Carl and Rob Reiner, the world would be a much less funny place. 

There are (or were) other Reiners too. Carl’s wife Estelle, who passed away in 1994 after 64 years of marriage, was a professional singer. But she will forever be known for her scene-stealing line in her son’s 1989 film, When Harry Met Sally—“I’ll have what she’s having.” Rob’s sister Annie is an author, playwright, and poet. And Rob’s kid brother Lucas has been at the helm of several indie film projects. I feel a bit sorry for Lucas, who by all reports is a good guy, because being the junior Reiner can’t be easy. Many years ago, as a fledgling day camp counselor, I was in charge of the bus that picked up young Lucas every day. Knowing what family he came from, I kept waiting for this little tyke to make me laugh.

As for Carl Reiner, where to begin? He won his spurs in early TV, as both writer and second banana on Sid Caesar’s hilarious variety shows. He created The Dick Van Dyke Show, and played one of its most memorable characters, the egomaniacal Alan Brady. He played straight man to Mel Brooks’ unforgettable 2000 Year Old Man, using his improv skills to guide Brooks’ zany performance. He acted in movies like The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. As a film director, he had a cult hit with Where’s Poppa, followed by a huge hit with Oh, God! And he directed and co-wrote four films, including The Jerk and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, that helped establish Steve Martin as a comedy icon. Still active at 95, he has newly announced an autobiography, to be called Too Busy to Die. In doing all of this, he has made bald look beautiful. 

I first became aware of Rob Reiner when I was a theatre critic for the UCLA Daily Bruin, circa 1969. I was sent to a small theatre in Hollywood to see a pair of comic one-acts. The first has totally slipped from my memory, but I still remember the second, “The Howie Rubin Story.” In it Reiner portrays a young boy with a Walter Mitty-like imagination: he likes to picture himself doing great things. So endearing was Rob in this role that I instantly knew he was destined for stardom. And so it came to pass. After playing some small sitcom roles and doing some writing for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Rob was cast as Michael Stivic, son-in-law and left-leaning nemesis to Archie Bunker on the legendary All in the Family. So completely was he identified with this role by the American public that he’s still known to quip, “"I could win the Nobel Prize and they'd write 'Meathead wins the Nobel Prize'.  

Today he’s highly regarded as a director of comedic tour-de-forces like This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride. But he’s also been honored for films ranging from the poignant Stand by Me to the creepy Misery to the tough-minded legal drama, A Few Good Men. These days he’s also known as a dedicated social activist, promoting marriage equality and initiatives designed to help young children. In 2006, there was talk of him running to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.  I would love to have seen that campaign: The Terminator versus The Meathead. 

Bud Yorkin: Engineering a Showbiz Career

Of course I’m dating myself, but I remember the 1971 TV debut of All in the Family. I was a grad student, hanging out with my boyfriend at the UCLA Department of Meteorology, where he had a part-time job. We both had work to do, but the show was getting so much advance press that it seemed obligatory to check it out. So we watched it on a little black-&-white TV in someone’s office. Black-&-white seemed appropriate for a show that was intended to raise hackles via the views of a lovable bigot. Frankly, we didn’t know what to think.

 All in the Family was inspired by a frank but funny British sitcom, “Till Death Us Do Part.” But it was all-American in its focus on the cultural conversation of its time. Over nine years, it tackled issues pertaining to race, religion, gender, and class, deliberately courting controversy. Before its long run was over, it had sparked such spin-offs as Maude, The Jeffersons, and Good Times. Credit for the show’s long-term success is usually given to Norman Lear, but his producing partner, Bud Yorkin was the one who started the ball rolling. Lear himself said it: “He was the horse we rode in on, and I couldn’t love or appreciate him more.”

I knew that Yorkin, who died this week at the age of 89, had made many contributions to TV and film comedy. Aside from his producer credits, he directed amiable films like 1963’s Come Blow Your Horn and 1967’s Divorce, American Style, then won Emmys for his stylish handling of one of TV’s seminal variety shows, An Evening with Fred Astaire. What I didn’t know until I read the obits was that Yorkin had an engineering background. After  spending World War II in the Air Force, helping to install sonar systems in the Pacific, he earned an electrical engineering degree at Carnegie Tech, and his first stab at an entertainment job was a stint repairing TV sets.

 I’m delighted by Yorkin’s engineering credentials because, though his route to Hollywood is not the usual one, he is not totally unique. My legendary former boss, B-movie maven Roger Corman, decided to break into showbiz after graduating from Stanford with a degree in industrial engineering. Many Cormanites have commented to me on how the engineer’s zest for problem-solving has shaped Roger’s filmmaking career: “He’s always written movies in three days, shot them in three days, used the same sets to shoot two or three movies. He loves that because that’s the efficient engineer in him. He loves that sense of being practical. You’ve had the expense of building the set, making the monster, now let’s get as much as we possibly can out of it.”  One Corman veteran theorizes that “one of his great joys in life is to come into total chaos and to straighten it out. And I think this has something to do with his engineering background. I sometimes think Roger actually, on some levels, creates problems so that he can solve them.”

Of course, filmmaking is a creative business as well as a practical one, and what this Corman alumnus calls “a very formal, black-and-white, engineering approach” doesn’t make for great art. But sometimes engineers can surprise you. I knew of one aerospace engineer, Todd W. Langen, who became obsessed with screenwriting. He took courses, studied produced scripts, and worked out a careful formula for what a good action movie should contain. Then he quit his day job. I thought he was crazy—until he resurfaced as an award-winner for The Wonder Years.

This post is dedicated to the most important engineer in my life, on our special day.