Name: Ben Stiller
Born: 30 November 1965 (Age: 46)
Where: New York City, New York, USA
Height: 5'8"
Awards: Won 1 Emmy
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Biography:
Achieving prolonged success in Hollywood could never be described as easy. To do it switching regularly between gross-out comedy and art-house drama is harder still. And to do it as an actor, writer, director and producer must surely qualify you as someone very special. Ben Stiller did this. Not only that, but he also managed to escape from the shadow of parents who were both nationally beloved entertainers, a problem that has left so many before him wallowing in a mire of thwarted expectations and bitter disappointment.
He was born Benjamin Stiller on the 30th of October, 1965, in New York City, the second child of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, daughter Amy having arrived two years earlier. Anne, born in 1929, had come to motherhood fairly late, due to a burgeoning comedy partnership with her husband. Being a couple of mixed religion (Anne had converted to Jerry's Jewish faith at marriage but was raised Irish Catholic), they had formed an act playing upon their differences and, as the loving but waspish Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, had become hugely popular. Indeed they had a residency on the Ed Sullivan Show, appearing every two months and eventually appearing no less than 36 times.
Many kids feel they have to compete with their parents' past achievements, but young Ben had to contend with a success that just kept coming. Anne had won an Obie back in 1955 for an off-Broadway performance in Madchen In Uniform, but that was just an aperitif. There'd be movie appearances - in the Jack Lemmon comedy The Out-Of-Towners, and Lovers And Other Strangers, which saw the debut of Diane Keaton. After the Ed Sullivan Show, in 1976 she would be Emmy nominated for the TV series Kate McShane, playing the emotional, hard-hitting lawyer of the title. The next year would see a Golden Globe nomination for her part in the comedy series Rhoda. From 1979 to '82 she and Jerry would co-host HBO's Sneak Preview, an hour-long show telling the nation what was coming up on the goggle-box. At the same time she'd play the English teacher in the movie Fame, and enjoy a run in Archie Bunker's Place, nabbing two more Emmy nominations. 1986 would see her re-paired with Jerry for the Stiller And Meara Show. 1992 would bring a long-running part as Peggy Moody in the super-soap All My Children. '93 would see a Tony nomination for her onstage efforts opposite Liam Neeson in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, and there'd be a host of other TV guest appearances in the likes of ALF, Oz, Murphy Brown and Sex And The City, yet another Emmy nomination coming for her performance in Homicide: Life On The Streets.
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Ben Stiller - Jerry Stiller Roast
Sesame Street: Ben Stiller Sings About Friends & Neighbors
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