Carl Reiner is 98 years old today. Let me see if I can put that in a context we can all understand: Yesterday, Carl Reiner was 97 years old and that was amazing. Today, he's a year older than that.
During around 80 of those years, he was either a working actor, a working director, a working producer, a working writer or retired. Actually, he's been writing books while retired so maybe he's not retired at all. What's more, most of what he's done as a working actor, a working director (etc.) has been very well respected and often loved. I can't think of anyone else ever in show business with a track record like that. Did he ever have one day since he turned 21 when he was worried about his next job?
I probably said this about him somewhere else on this blog but I'm too lazy to do a search…but what amazes me about the man is that he's spent almost all of those professional years making other people look good. On Your Show of Shows and other programs he did with Sid Caesar, he made Sid Caesar look good. On The Dick Van Dyke Show, he made Dick Van Dyke look good. On many great record albums, he made Mel Brooks look good. Directing movies, he made Steve Martin, John Denver and many others look good.
Now, you might say, "Hold on, Charlie! How difficult is it to make someone like Sid Caesar or Mel Brooks look good?" and the answer is "Very difficult." To share a stage with someone like that, you have to be as good as someone like that or you disappear. When one guy's being the straight man and one guy's being the funny guy, the straight man has to be adept enough to "spot" (in a gymnastic sense) the funny guy…to see where he's going and to help him get there and to pull him back when he goes too far.
So he's always been good at that and he has a reputation for being one of the nicest people on this planet. The few times I've been around him make me think it's richly deserved. A joyous 98 to him and I hope I can rerun this column every year for many years to come.