Father and son filmmakers Carl and Rob Reiner were honoured on Friday for a combined 130 years in show business when they sunk their hands and feet into wet cement on Hollywood Boulevard.

The celebration marked the first time in the 90-year history of the imprint ceremonies at the TCL Chinese Theatre — originally Grauman’s Chinese Theatre — that a father and son had been honoured together. The event was part of the TCM Classic Film Festival.

“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 the live variety series Your Show of Shows.

He shot to fame as the creator of hit situation comedy 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 still appears 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 sitcom All in the Family, created by veteran producer Norman Lear, who attended Friday’s ceremony.

But he went on to make a greater impact as a director, hitting it big with the 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, in which he also starred — a movie still considered a milestone in comedy cinema.

 

‘My idol’

The younger Reiner followed that with coming-of-age drama Stand By Me, storybook fantasy The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally, which went on to inspire generations of rom-com writers and directors.

His other directing credits include Misery, A Few Good Men, Ghosts of Mississippi, The American President and The Bucket List.

Among the Reiners’ well-wishers at the Chinese Theatre were Hollywood star Billy Crystal and Emmy Award-winning television host Tom Bergeron.

Crystal recounted being discovered by Carl Reiner and Lear when he was performing stand-up as a naive young comedian in 1975, and being handed a part in All in the Family.

Crystal had a small role in This is Spinal Tap and went on to star in The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally, still two of the younger Reiner’s most iconic movies.

“It was a brilliant concept, Rob’s concept: Can men and women be friends when the sex part gets in the way?” Crystal said of When Harry Met Sally (1989).

“It was Rob’s ear — how do we tell the jokes right, how do we make it effortless, the music of the writing?... He always has the perfect answer as a director: Let’s try it.”

Carl paid tribute to his son’s directing skills, revealing that The Princess Bride (1987) remains one of his 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. As active as ever, he has two political movies coming out this year: LBJ and Shock and Awe.

source: GULF NEWS