LOS ANGELES, April 8 — Father-and-son filmmakers Carl and Rob Reiner were honoured yesterday for a joint 130 years in showbusiness when they sunk their hands and feet into cement on Hollywood Boulevard.
The celebration, organised as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival, marked the first time in the 90-year history of the imprint ceremonies at the TCL Chinese Theatre that a father and son had been honoured together.
“Few fathers and sons are as accomplished as Carl and Rob and none are as funny,” Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz said.
Carl Reiner, 95, started out as a Broadway performer, getting his television break when he joined Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on live variety series Your Show of Shows.
He shot to fame as the creator of hit sit-com The Dick Van Dyke Show and went on to direct iconic Steve Martin features The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and The Man with Two Brains, as well as John Candy’s “Summer Rental.”
More recently, he appeared in Ocean’s 11 and its sequels, and has continued to show up regularly on television shows such as Boston Legal, Family Guy and Hot in Cleveland.
Rob Reiner, 70, rose to fame portraying Archie Bunker’s notoriously liberal son-in-law Michael Meathead Stivic on CBS sit-com All in the Family, created by veteran producer Norman Lear, who was at the ceremony.
But he went on to make a bigger impact as a director, hitting it big with the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, in which he also starred.
He followed that with coming-of-age drama Stand By Me, storybook fantasy The Princess Bride and rom-com When Harry Met Sally.
His other directing credits include Misery, A Few Good Men, Ghosts of Mississippi, The American President and The Bucket List.
Carl paid tribute to his son’s directing skills, revealing that “The Princess Bride” (1987) remained one of his top three favourite movies.
“My father was my idol, I looked up to him. He stood for everything I wanted to be in life,” added the younger Reiner, who has two political movies coming out this year, LBJ and Shock and Awe. —AFP-Relaxnews
