Biography
Personal
life
Meara was born in Queens, New York, the daughter of Mary (née
Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara,[1] Irish-born immigrants from
a village called Toomevara. Her mother committed suicide when Meara
was 11, and she has been in therapy since the mid-1980s. Meara was
raised Catholic, but converted to Judaism six years after marrying
Stiller.[2] She has long stressed that she did not convert at Stiller's
request, but because "Catholicism was dead to me", and
she simply came to prefer the more "lively" character
of Jewish culture. She took the conversion seriously and studied
the faith in such depth that her Jewish-born husband quipped, "Being
married to Anne has made me more Jewish."
Career
Meara has been married to Stiller since 1954. Both were members
of the improvisational company The Compass Players (which later
became The Second City), and the pair, as the comedy team Stiller
and Meara, brought many of their real-life relationship foibles
to bear on their often-improvised comedy routines. After some years
honing the act, Stiller and Meara became regulars on The Ed Sullivan
Show and other TV programs.
During
the 1970s, Meara and Stiller wrote and performed many radio commercials
together for Blue Nun Wine.
Meara
costarred with Carroll O'Connor and Martin Balsam in early 1980s
hit sit-com Archie Bunker's Place, which was a continuation of the
influential 1970s sitcom All in the Family. She played the role
of Veronica Rooney, who was the bar’s cook, for the show's first
three seasons (1979-1982). She also appeared as the grandmother
in the TV series ALF in the late 1980s. Their career declined, however,
as variety series gradually disappeared. Her own 1986 TV sitcom,
The Stiller and Meara Show, in which Stiller played the deputy mayor
of New York City and Meara portrayed his wife, a TV commercial actress,
was unsuccessful. More recently, she has had recurring roles on
the television shows Sex and the City (as Mary Brady) and The King
of Queens (as Veronica). In the 2004-'05 season, she appeared in
an episode of Law and Order SVU.
She
is the consulting director of J.A.P. - The Jewish American Princesses
of Comedy, a 2007 Off-Broadway production that features live stand-up
routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories
of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s: Totie Fields,
Jean Carroll, Pearl Williams, Betty Walker and Belle Barth.
Filmography
The Out-of-Towners (1970)
Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)
Irish Whiskey Rebellion (1972)
Nasty Habits (1977)
The Boys from Brazil (1978)
Fame (1980)
In Our Hands (1984) (documentary)
The Longshot (1986)
The Perils of P.K. (1986)
My Little Girl (1987)
That's Adequate (1989)
Awakenings (1990)
Through an Open Window (1992) (short subject)
Highway to Hell (1992)
So You Want to Be an Actor (1993) (short subject)
Reality Bites (1994)
The Search for One-Eye Jimmy (1994)
Heavyweights (1995)
Kiss of Death (1995)
The Daytrippers (1996)
The Thin Pink Line (1998)
Southie (1998)
The Diary of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man (1999)
Judy Berlin (1999)
Brooklyn Thrill Killers (1999) (short subject)
A Fish in the Bathtub (1999)
Amy Stiller's Breast (2000) (short subject)
The Independent (2000)
Zoolander (2001)
Keeping It Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch (2001) (documentary)
Get Well Soon (2001)
Like Mike (2002)
The Yard Sale (2002) (short subject)
Crooked Lines (2003)
Chump Change (2004)
Night at the Museum (2006)
Upcoming
The Mirror (2007)
Sex & The City (2008)
Television
Work
The Greatest Gift (1954-1955)
Ninotchka (1960)
Dames at Sea (1971)
The Paul Lynde Show (1972-1973)
The Corner Bar (cast member in 1973)
Kate McShane (1975) (canceled after 10 episodes)
Rhoda (cast member from 1976-1977)
Archie Bunker's Place (cast member from 1979-1982)
The Other Woman (1983)
The Stiller & Meara Show (1986) (canceled after a few weeks)
The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (1987)
Murder She Wrote (1988) (guest appearance)
Avenue Z Afternoon (1991)
The Sunset Gang (1991)
All My Children (cast member from 1992-1999)
Love Off Limits (1993)
The Mother (1994)
Jitters (1997)
What Makes a Family (2001)
Sex and the City (2002-2004)
The King Of Queens (1998, 2003-2007)
Oz (appeared in 2 episodes in 1999 & 2002)