Carl Reiner, best known as the man behind “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” is one humble guy, considering his list of accomplishments in television and film.
Reiner’s career is honored at 8 p.m. Wednesday when PBS (WTTW-Ch. 11) airs a two-hour tribute to the comedy legend, “The Kennedy Center Presents: The Mark Twain Prize.”
Having taped the black-tie event in October, when a stellar guest list paid tribute, Reiner, who will be 79 on March 20, reflected that watching the finished video made him uncomfortable.
“I looked at it with one eye closed,” he said. “It’s very hard to watch people talk about you as if you were dead. It’s like a eulogy when you’re alive. It’s embarrassing.”
But he loved that such talented people came — at the producer’s request, not Reiner’s — and performed standup to honor the man. They included Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, Richard Belzer, Joy Behar, George Wallace and Reiner’s son, director Rob Reiner. And, of course, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore were there — both said they owe their careers to Reiner — while Ray Romano and Mel Brooks appeared on tape.
Much of his success, Reiner said, is due to luck. He started his show-business career at 16 when his brother Charlie found a newspaper blurb mentioning a school for actors through the Works Progress Administration in New York City.
“If my brother hadn’t seen that little article in the paper that said free drama lessons at 100 Centre St. — which is now a cable show title, coincidentally — there’s no way I would have found my way into show business,” he said.
But he had honed his funny bone long before that. At the time, he was operating machinery on a factory line.
“I would’ve been a very funny machinist” if not for Charlie, he said. “Everybody has opportunities that don’t look like opportunities, but you have to take that road.”
After acting school, Reiner worked his way into Broadway musicals and GI revues during World War II and became a regular writer and performer on “Your Show of Shows” and “Caesar’s Hour,” winning two Emmys supporting Sid Caesar, the show’s star. Then Reiner created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which he wrote, produced, directed and acted in, from 1961-66. He worked hard, writing nearly 40 of the first 60 scripts.
Although he won five Emmys for the series, his idea at the time, he said, was “to make a living.” The show’s success was due to his belief that the writing had to tell the truth — always.
“I was writing about my life and talked about problems in the office, and at the office, I talked about my problems at home,” he said.
While Reiner appeared as Alan Brady, the vain variety-show star, Dick Van Dyke was Rob Petrie, his head writer, who was based on the real Carl Reiner.
Reiner broke into screenwriting with the Norman Jewison films “The Thrill of It All” (1963) and “The Art of Love” (1965), then starred in Jewison’s “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” in 1966. That same year, he published the autobiographical novel “Enter Laughing,” then directed its screen adaptation in 1967.
Later, he was the force behind four films with Steve Martin — “The Jerk,” “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” “The Man With Two Brains” and “All of Me” — as well as “Summer Rental,” “Sibling Rivalry,” “Fatal Instinct” and “Oh God!”
He has won 12 Emmys (including one for reprising the Alan Brady character on “Mad About You” in 1995). Many know him as the straight man to Mel Brooks’ 2,000-Year-Old-Man. He also published two other novels and a book of short stories and said he has another one partially written — if he can leave the computer solitaire alone.
On influencing so many, Reiner said: “You do your work and good things will come of it.” And to him, it’s the quality that counts: “You don’t do the arts for money,” he said.
The televised tribute opens with Seinfeld, who insists that if Twain were alive today he’d be lucky to be typing Carl Reiner’s script changes. Then the rest of the group offer praise, with Martin and Moore as particular highlights, while TV and movie clips are shown throughout. The show culminates in Rob Reiner’s hilarious, off-the-cuff speech to his dad, followed by Reiner’s acceptance of the award, when he thanks his family, notably his ailing brother, the one he credits with his start.
In accepting the Twain award, Reiner took no credit for himself, instead holding up Charlie as a hero and mentioning his brother’s involvement in 11 major battles in World War II.
“But the thrill was the next day,” he said. “President Clinton invited us to the White House and he couldn’t have been more gracious. He spoke to Charlie for 20 minutes about (Charlie’s) war experiences, about the D-Day thing, the 50th anniversary. Clinton was very moved by that. He kept a plane waiting.”
At the end of the taped event, a short documentary hosted by Van Dyke fills in the blanks for viewers who weren’t able to watch “Your Show of Shows” and “Dick Van Dyke.” The documentary splices interviews with other writers and cast of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” as well as Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Seinfeld, Behar and Belzer. One writer observes that today’s sitcoms are the product of the 11th generation of cousins marrying cousins but that when Reiner was writing “Dick Van Dyke,” the sitcom was in its purest form.
Comedy will never go out of style, Reiner believes. “As long as people remain as they are today, comedy will reflect the society. Comedians will notice what is wrong and point to it — from the court jester on, when they said the king is crazy and got away with it. I’m amazed what the Bill Mahers and Jay Lenos will get away with in making fun of the political leaders.
“As the world gets more chaotic and crazy, comedians will point that out to us.”
