Carl Reiner, the legendary comedian, actor, director and screenwriter whose career spanned more than decades, passed away Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was 98 years old. According to TMZ, Reiner was surrounded by his family.
Beginning his entertainment on Broadway in the late 1940s, Reiner soon rose to fame as a featured performer on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, the highly influential NBC variety series. It was there he first worked with writer Mel Brooks, with whom he later partnered for the comedy sketch "The 2,000 Year Old Man." The routine, in which Reiner played the straight man to Brooks' purportedly 2,000-year-old man, became an improvisational-comedy staple, leading to countless television performances, five albums, and even an animated special.
Reiner is also famed as the creator of the Emmy Award-winning sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, based on his own life. Originally developed as the pilot Head of the Family, starring Reiner as TV writer Rob Petrie (that episode can be found on Hulu), the project was reworked and retitled, with Dick Van Dyke in the lead role. Reiner wrote numerous episodes, and made memorable guest appearances as Alan Brady, the mercurial, and toupee-wearing, host of the variety show on which Rob worked as head writer.
Expanding into directing, Reiner helmed such hit comedies as 1977's Oh, God!, and the Steve Martin vehicles The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains and All of Me.
A familiar face on television, Reiner made appearances over the decades on such series as Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, The Bernie Mac Show and Frasier. However, he'll no doubt be remembered by younger generations for his roles as Saul Bloom in Ocean's Eleven and its sequels, and as the voice of Carl Rhinoceros in Toy Story 4.
Politically outspoken, Reiner didn't shy away from criticizing the president, going so far as to say that it was his "personal goal" to live long enough to vote Donald Trump out of office. He was also recently photographed wearing a "Black Lives Matter" shirt alongside Brooks and daughter Annie.
Reiner was preceded in death in 2008 by his wife Estelle Lebost. He's survived by two sons, the actor and director Rob Reiner, and painter and photographer Lucas Reiner, and a daughter, author and playwright Annie Reiner.
Note: 2012 photo of Carl Reiner taken by Louise Palanker.