Rise to Fame
A New Deal program started it all. His brother found a free WPA drama workshop in a newspaper, nudged a teenage Carl to attend, and by 1950 Reiner was in the Your Show of Shows writers' room alongside Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. He has said he stayed deliberately uncredited so he could leave at 6 p.m. and work on his own material. That material became The Dick Van Dyke Show. He wrote the pilot with himself in the lead, got rejected by producer Sheldon Leonard, and let Van Dyke take the marquee. The character Rob Petrie is Carl Reiner with someone else's name on it.
In the Spotlight
Eleven Emmy wins and four decades of credits and Reiner still wasn't done. He directed Oh, God! and four Steve Martin films including The Jerk, then resurfaced as Saul Bloom in the Ocean's trilogy well into his late seventies. He was tweeting political commentary into his late nineties and taking film roles through the final week of his life. The 2000 Year Old Man recordings with Mel Brooks are in the Library of Congress.
Side Notes
His wife Estelle's most famous contribution to cinema isn't from her husband's filmography. She delivered 'I'll have what she's having' as a background extra in Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally, making the most quoted line from a film about falling in love the property of the director's mother. Reiner's last filmed line was 'As you wish,' recorded three days before his death for a COVID charity project. In The Princess Bride universe, 'As you wish' means 'I love you.' He probably knew that.
Final Chapter
Mel Brooks, his best friend since 1950, went to Reiner's Beverly Hills home for dinner every night for a year after his death. The two chairs they sat in while watching old films are now on permanent display at the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York. Rob Reiner announced the news on Twitter. Steve Martin published a tribute op-ed in the New York Times. Reiner's final on-screen appearance, filmed three days before his death, was a cameo in Home Movie: The Princess Bride.