Stiller & Meara predate hieroglyphics. Their first write-up was on the walls of a pyramid. Initially hot in the ’60s, this comedy duo’s appeared everywhere — Vegas, Borscht Belt, Atlantic City, radio, TV, vaudeville, commercials, stage, big-time movies, small-time one-nighters, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Miami club dates, even son Ben Stiller’s guestroom. You name it, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara have played it.
Now, whenever the telly’s on, Jerry — who starred in “King of Queens,” who was Costanza’s father on “Seinfeld” — is on. Doing Capital One commercials.
“Things happen if you hang around long enough,” he said. “Two years ago these guys had this idea. They called my agent. We talked about it. Not being British since I’m from Brooklyn, I’d conversationally drop words like ‘schtick.’ Or if something’s valueless maybe I’d say, ‘It’s worth bupkis.’
“This guy from India was listening. He kept the camera on. And incorporated that stuff. Even when I called someone’s backside with the Yiddish word ‘toochis,’ they left it in.
“So how long will this continue? Who knows? I’m 85, and I’m suddenly getting discovered. At this age, where my only ongoing relationships are with doctors and upgrades for my pacemaker, I’m getting discovered. Whothehell understands this?”
Demi Moore. In days of yore, like late 1980s era, The Academy Awards night 26 or so years ago. Right after its telecast went off the air. The world was rushing around, tuxes here, gowns there, celebs carrying cocktails, heading to parties, summoning limos. I saw her sitting alone. Outdoors. On a pavilion’s steps. Looking so beaten that I did not approach. The funk? Worrying if Bruce Willis — who’d become Husband No. 2 — might marry her. Beautiful, talented, rich, famous Demi takes love affairs to heart.
Hillary knows she must shape up cosmetically — hair, weight, hair, face, hair, body, hair, makeup, hair, clothes, hair. And she needs rest. A strange bed every night, foreign country’s foreign food every day took its toll. She knows it. She’s repeatedly heard it. Her answer to a well-coiffed head, other than slicking it back in a quickie ponytail, is: “Look, I know, but I wanted one more last time to have long hair.”
Furrier Dennis Basso’s blowout sale is at West 33rd’s Soiffer Haskin. Welcomed: all adults with money. Unwelcomed: Any kids under 12 . . . Tom Cruise’s son, Connor
Cruise, 17, heavy neck chain, low-slung jeans, using the name DJ C-Squared, deejaying a celebrity-heavy late-nighter at McDonald’s Chicken McBites in LA. He popped McD’s as he introduced Salt-N-Pepa.
Ex top cop, security specialist Howard Safir’s Sunday 11 a.m. Sirius radio show “The Badge, ” about law enforcement, will be two hours once a week . . . I just discovered West 44th’s restaurant Triomphe, next to the Algonquin. So great that I brought food home. I said it’s for my Yorkies, but New Yorkie me ate all the leftovers for next day’s lunch.
Listen, this may not come up in conversation, but I just learned Westchester’s 500 square miles is bigger than 40 countries. That includes Vatican City, Virgin Islands and Liechtenstein. Like I say, you maybe don’t care, but I just learned it and am consumed with sharing the information.
Lillian Schwabe paid 10 cents to see “The Perils of Pauline.” Early transport was a horse-drawn carriage. The subway, a nickel. Her 900-square-foot Village apartment 70 years ago was $95 a month. Today, although she pays less, it’s $4,000.
She recalls Calvin Coolidge, Mayor La Guardia. Remembers the Waldorf was where the Empire State Building is now. Recites six of Martha Graham’s seven ways to fall: left, right, down, forward, backward, knees collapse.
Born Aug. 11, 1910, Lillian is 102. Married four times — the same man, twice. One husband for 54 years. Another, 38 years her senior. Her lone child, 82, lives in Indiana. She uses Access-a-Ride. Bedtime is 2 a.m., she rises 8 a.m. She tells me: “I stopped driving two years ago. The garage man bought my car for his daughter.”
She gets visitors, phone calls, watches TV, uses a typewriter. The doorman checks her periodically. Does her own shopping. Takes most meals, including breakfast, at restaurants. Dinner’s 4 p.m. She buys clothes through catalogs. Her cashmere sweater was “two-ply.” She wore a diamond ring, beaded Astro Minerals necklace, had manicured nails, the bag slung across her chest to deflect robbers. Her dinner was cranberry juice, ravioli, cappucino.
Ex-vaudevillian, she uses a cane and says: “My hearing and everything is perfect. I have no pains at all. I don’t bother with doctors. My only problem is my hips.”
And will she vote? “Yes. I wanted Hillary. I like Ron Paul. I’ll vote for Obama.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.