ASK me: Carl Reiner

Baden Smith — who lives way off in Adelaide, South Australia — sent me the following…

Hi, Mark. Seeing that Dick Van Dyke compilation video reminded me of something I've been meaning to ask you: In the episode "Coast To Coast Big Mouth," it's revealed that Alan Brady is bald. The question: Was it known at the time that Carl Reiner was bald, or was this episode's tonsorial twist as much a surprise to viewers as it was the characters?

If you were then a watcher of talk shows, it was no shock. I don't know exactly when Mr. Reiner began losing his hair but he never made it a secret. He was known to go on shows with and without his hairpiece and ask the studio audience to vote on how they preferred to see him. Even when he had the toupée on, he would often say things like, "This is such an important event that as you can see, I wore my hair!"

Carl Reiner had an amazing career, always working as an actor, writer, producer and/or director on something…and usually something widely respected like Your Show of Shows or The Dick Van Dyke Show. The man got 18 Emmy nominations and won 11 of them, plus there's a bust of him in the Hall of Fame Garden at the TV Academy. Yet in a business where jealousy can be as potent a driving force as money, he was utterly undisliked by anyone.

That may have been because he had one of the healthiest egos in Hollywood. He spent most of that long, long career making others look good. He made Sid Caesar look good. He made Dick Van Dyke and everyone on that program look good. He made Mel Brooks look good. He made everyone who starred in a movie he directed look good. He was on television for many decades yet he never did anything called The Carl Reiner Show. There are some stars who obsess about getting their names in the title.

And when he did create something that could have been called The Carl Reiner Show and it was suggested that someone else star, he said, "Fine. I'll just produce and write it!" Not keeping his baldness a secret was just another sign that he may have been The Most Secure Man in Show Business.

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