They Really Are a Scream
The Costanzas, Frank and Estelle, are George’s dysfunctional parents. They reside in the New York City borough of Queens in a private home on 1344 Queens Boulevard. And since the apple doesn’t ordinarily fall far from the tree, it’s no surprise that George is a thirty-something basket case who faults his parents for making him the man that he is—the poor excuse for the man that he is. Frank and Estelle squabble round the clock, with recurrent displays of screaming and yelling. Their son says that’s the way it’s always been in the Costanza household. In the company of the Costanza patriarch and matriarch—one or both of them—there is never a dull moment. Frank Costanza’s red-hot temper, abrasive personality, and trailer-truckload of phobias and off-the-wall idiosyncrasies ensure verbal fireworks. As for Estelle Costanza, her insufferable and overbearing personality makes her radioactive wherever she happens to be.
Frank Talk
Frank Costanza was born in Tuscany, Italy, which precludes him from ever being elected president of the United States. Article II of the Constitution unequivocally states, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President.” Surprisingly, this constitutional prohibition greatly rankles Frank and is a contributing factor—one among many—to his unfathomable reservoir of bitterness. He has no interest in politics because of this slight. “They don’t want me! I don’t want them!” Frank says with characteristic fury in “The Doll.”
A Korean War veteran, Frank proudly served with the “Fighting 103rd.” He was his outfit’s cook and, according to him, quite proficient in his culinary endeavors. However, despite the fact that he considers his wife’s cooking positively awful, he never once put on an apron and prepared a meal after he returned home to the States. “Your meatloaf is mushy, your salmon croquettes are oily, and your eggplant Parmesan is a disgrace to this house,” he informs his wife in “The Fatigues.” As it just so happens, Kramer is at the Costanzas’ house attempting to convince the obstinate Frank to pick up a spoon and spatula again. He needs his help in preparing foods for a “Jewish Singles Night” that he has organized at the Knights of Columbus, of which Frank is a member.
Comedian Jerry Stiller gave us Frank Costanza and Festivus—enough said.
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Frank, though, remains traumatized by what happened during the Korean War. One day as cook for his frontline comrades, he over-seasoned six hundred pounds of beef that was, to put it mildly, past its prime. Men dropped like flies after consuming the meat—no vacancy signs hung on the latrines—and Frank could never get over this harrowing spectacle of war.
Frank speaks fluent Korean, the language of that faraway land, because of his past business dealings there. He sold religious statues. In his travels as a salesman, Frank encountered South Korean billionaire Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, a.k.a. the Moonies. In “The Understudy,” he recollects, “He bought two Jesus statues from me. He’s a hell of a nice guy!” Frank also had an affair with a Korean woman named Kim, whom he deeply loved. But the clash of cultures made a long-term relationship impossible. Kim’s family could not abide Frank Costanza who, in violating local custom, wouldn’t remove his shoes upon entering their home. He cited possible foot odor as the sole reason for him opting to keep on his shoes. In the same episode, Frank stumbles upon Kim—for the first time in almost a half-century—working in a Manhattan nail salon. Old memories and notions of “What might have been?” are resurrected. Kim laments, “Oh, Frank . . . so many years. If only you had taken your shoes off.”
Decades have passed and Frank still has a thing about removing his shoes in other people’s homes. A simple request for shoe removal touches a nerve—a psychological third rail—that ushers the man into a fit of apoplexy.
Frank’s hobbies, which he takes very seriously, include playing old “Latin American” vinyl records and collecting issues of TV Guide. In the episode “The Cigar Store Indian,” Frank and Estelle return home after an extended absence and are met by George, who is living there, and Jerry, who is visiting. Thumbing through the mail that has piled up, Frank senses something is not quite right. One of his TV Guides is missing. Since it was a past issue, Jerry wonders what all the fuss is about. He learns then and there that Frank collects them and has to break the bad news to him that Elaine had taken the TV Guide in question with her as subway reading material. “The nerve of that woman,” Frank says. “Walking into my house, stealing my collectible!”
Frank’s neuroses span a wide gamut. His innumerable fears and eccentricities define who he is. They dominate his every waking hour. Frank is deathly afraid of mice and rats. In fact, the mere mention of these pests is enough to initiate a panic attack. Paradoxically, he has a genuine affinity for squirrels, with their furry tails, even though they are members of the rodent family. They are warm and fuzzy looking when they are shucking peanuts and walking along electrical and telephone wires, but rat-like nonetheless.
In the episode “The Conversion,” we discover just how much Frank cares for New York’s squirrel population when George informs the folks that he is converting to the Latvian Orthodox religion. Naturally, Frank and Estelle aren’t too happy about this development. Without knowing anything about the religion, they nonetheless believe their son is involved with a dangerous cult and, of course, brainwashed. “Is this the group that goes around mutilating squirrels?” Frank asks with genuine concern in his voice, while pleading with George to stay away from these noble creatures.
Although it sometimes seems otherwise, there is more to Frank Costanza than loud blustering and continuous wrangling. Yes, he’s got a soft spot in his heart for squirrels, but he’s also the man who inaugurated an alternative holiday to Christmas: Festivus. It is celebrated on December 23 as a counterpoint to the mad rush that accompanies the holiday season. “Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son,” Frank recounts in “The Strike.” “I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.” And that way was Festivus, with traditions all its own.
Rather than a Christmas tree, the Costanzas have a bare, undecorated aluminum pole in the living room. Prior to the holiday meal there is an “airing of grievances.” Frank describes how this works: “At the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year.” In stark contrast to Christmas, with its merrily benign traditions like singing carols, opening presents, and sipping eggnog, post dinner at the Festivus celebration involves “feats of strength.” It is said, “Festivus is not over until the head of the household is wrestled to the floor or pinned.”
The Costanzas, Frank and Estelle, are indeed an odd couple. In “The Caddy,” when their son’s boss, George Steinbrenner, comes to their house bearing heartbreaking tidings, we see the family dynamics at work. From the other side of the front door, “The Boss” reveals that their only son, George, is presumed dead. Estelle gasps and sheds tears at the news, but Frank’s got something that can’t wait for Mr. Steinbrenner—criticism. He vociferously complains about the recent trade of outfielder Jay Buhner and blasts Steinbrenner for being clueless.
George’s Earth Mother
Unlike her Italian-born husband, Estelle Costanza’s ethnicity and religious background are shrouded in some mystery. Once upon a time—pre-Festivus—the Costanza family celebrated Christmas. In “The Money,” however, Estelle informs her son, “Your father wanted a Mercedes, but I won’t ride in a German car.” This heartfelt sentiment is perhaps a clue that she is Jewish.
Estelle Costanza clearly loves her only son. She’s got his baby picture on display in the house. And how many mothers out there would attempt to seduce a judge, as she did in “The Finale,” to help their son avoid a jail sentence? While Estelle was unsuccessful in her efforts to sway the judge’s verdict with her feminine charms, one can’t fault her for trying.
Estelle’s relationship with her husband, Frank, is a never-ending storm. George says that he never once saw his mother laugh, although she has been known to smirk and giggle on occasion, including in “The Fusilli Jerry” when driving with Kramer, who is receiving periodic catcalls for his “Assman” vanity license plates. She doesn’t respect Frank, and he doesn’t respect her. They are perpetually at odds. Frank and Estelle stay together, nonetheless, as many unhappy couples are wont to do, out of habit.
The Costanzas do, however, briefly separate and contemplate joining the dating game, much to their son’s disgust; George simply can’t bear the notion of his parents being “out there” and playing the field alongside him. Also, with his parents separated, George would have to pay two holiday visits instead of one, which he finds unacceptable. “There is no way that this is gonna happen,” George rants upon hearing the news of the breakup in “The Chinese Woman.” “You hear me? No way! Because if you think I’m going to two Thanksgivings, you’re out of your mind!”
Motherly love notwithstanding, Estelle has utter contempt for her son and makes it known every chance she gets. In “The Engagement,” when George’s fiancée, Susan, tells Mrs. Costanza that she loves her son very much, Estelle replies incredulously, “You do?” and then inquires, “May I ask why?” She is constantly interfering in George’s life, including his romantic liaisons. In “The Cigar Store Indian,” Estelle has no problem spilling the beans on George’s ruse with a girlfriend named Sylvia—that their home in Queens is also his home—by telling her: “George doesn’t work. He’s a bum. That’s why he lives at home with us.”
In “The Contest,” Estelle injures her back and is hospitalized after accidentally catching George boxing the trouser mouse. “I come home and find my son treating his body like it was an amusement park!” she cries. In light of this indiscretion, she wants George to see a psychiatrist. In “The Conversion,” Estelle is visibly upset at George’s decision to convert to the Latvian Orthodox religion—to win the heart of Sasha, who is only permitted to date members of her own faith—and matter-of-factly queries her son, “Why can’t you do anything like a normal person?” and—again—suggests he seek psychiatric counsel.
Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris, who breathed incredible life into the perpetually bickering Frank and Estelle Costanza.
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Estelle is definitely hard to please. She considers George’s best friend’s parents, Morty and Helen Seinfeld, a pair of snobs who think they are too good for the Costanzas. When the Seinfelds cite previous plans, which they do not have, as a convenient subterfuge to circumvent a Costanza dinner invitation in “The Raincoats,” her negative opinion of the couple is reinforced. The moment Estelle discovers the truth—that Morty and Helen deliberately blew off the Costanzas’ gathering—she characteristically expresses her disdain in no uncertain terms: “I never liked those Seinfelds anyway. He’s an idiot altogether!”
While Estelle is renowned for finding fault with both her husband and son—and just about everybody else—she displays genuine fondness for Kramer, so much so that it riles her jealous husband. In “The Fusilli Jerry,” Estelle accepts Kramer’s invitation to chauffeur her home after cosmetic eye surgery and is convinced that the latter employed the same come-on—“stopping short”—that her husband Frank originated. Kramer, though, had merely struck a pothole and, as an instinctive and protective action, stuck out his arm in front of Estelle. Despite the Costanzas being separated at the time, Frank angrily confronts Kramer about utilizing his old move on Estelle.
While cohabitating, Frank and Estelle sleep in separate beds. In “The Money,” the former explains that it’s because of his wife’s “jimmy arms.” That is, Estelle’s elbows are in constant motion while she’s asleep. Resting alongside her is thus dangerous duty. In “The Junk Mail,” Frank and Estelle get it on in Jerry’s van—the one given to him by “Fragile” Frankie Merman.
Jerry Stiller: A Stiller Performer
Gerald Isaac Stiller is the actor who will be forever immortalized as Frank Costanza. He was born on June 8, 1927, in New York City to Austrian-Jewish and Russian-Jewish immigrants, William and Bella Stiller. The former drove a bus for a living, whereas the latter, a homemaker, raised “Jerry,” as he was known in the family, and his three siblings: Arnold, Dorine, and Maxine.
Hardscrabble times were definitely the norm during Jerry Stiller’s boyhood, particularly after the stock market crash in October 1929. “During the Depression, my father took me to vaudeville,” Stiller recalled to Esquire magazine. “When we came home, we had no money. I remember my mother turning her pocketbook upside down. Not a penny. ‘Go out and hack!’ she screamed at my father. ‘Nobody wants a cab,’ he said. ‘They can’t afford it.’ My mother kept at him. . . . As he headed for the door, he said to her, ‘You hate vaudeville.’ And she said, ‘Maybe if I wasn’t with you, I’d like it.’ I remembered that all my life, and I would use it onstage with Anne [Meara, his wife and comedy partner]. The difference is our audience would laugh at it.”
Jerry Stiller attended Seward Park High School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and was accepted into the University of Syracuse. He graduated in 1950 with a bachelor of science degree in speech and drama. “When I told my father I wanted to be an actor, he said, ‘Why not a stagehand? You’ll work every night,’” he recollected. Security above all else was a common mindset of the generation that survived the Great Depression.
While Stiller is primarily known as a comedian—and to younger generations will always be remembered as the man who played the perpetually petulant Frank Costanza on Seinfeld and the constantly conniving Arthur Spooner on The King of Queens—he has a rather extensive and diverse résumé.
His performance debut was not in a New York or Los Angeles comedy club like the Jerry named Seinfeld, but on stage alongside Burgess Meredith in the children’s play The Silver Whistle, a fairy tale about a whistle with magical powers that has been lost by a princess. In the fledgling moments of his career, he also appeared in Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat on the Chicago stage. His stage credits through the years include Hurlyburly, The Ritz, Three Men on a Horse, The Three Sisters, and Much Ado About Nothing.
Jerry Stiller, however, quickly realized that comedy was what he did best, what he most loved doing, and where he could actually earn a fair living. When he was accepted into the improvisational troupe known as the Compass Players, which subsequently became the well-known Second City ensemble, Stiller’s career balloon took flight. He also met a fellow member of the Compass Players, Anne Meara, in 1953. They tied the knot a year later and Stiller and Meara were born—a husband-and-wife comedy team.
It didn’t take very long for Stiller and Meara, the act, to be a familiar quantity in comedy clubs and in living rooms all across the country. Their long-running routine underscored the couple’s differences, particularly in physical appearance and manner. Stiller was short—five four—while his wife is a couple of inches taller. He is Jewish and she is Irish-Catholic, which furnished endless fodder for their comedic interplay. Stiller and Meara performed on The Ed Sullivan Show thirty-six times through the years. This immensely popular variety show was a Sunday night institution that aired from 1948 to 1971, almost a quarter of a century, and got many relatively unknown guests welcome recognition that often propelled them to bigger and better things. Virtually everyone, it seemed, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Barbra Streisand; Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Wilt Chamberlain; George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Rodney Dangerfield.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, television variety shows were in vogue and talented comedians, like Stiller and Meara, had no shortage of invitations to appear on the small screen. But by the late 1970s, the variety show was no longer a ratings grabber and was fast vanishing from the primetime landscape. The Stiller and Meara comedy act lost its most important venue and their career waned as a result.
Nevertheless, Jerry Stiller had little problem finding work and appeared in numerous television shows and movies. His pre-Seinfeld television credits include Archie Bunker’s Place (on which Anne Meara was a regular cast member), The Paul Lynde Show, Joe and Sons, Touched by an Angel, and The Stiller and Meara Show, a pilot for a sitcom that aired in 1986 with Stiller playing a New York City deputy mayor married to a television commercial actress. Unfortunately, it never got beyond the pilot stage. Stiller’s movie credits include The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Airport 1975 (1974), Hairspray (1988), Little Vegas (1990), and Highway to Hell (1992).
His ticket to television immortality, though, was punched in 1993 when he was asked to audition for the role of Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. Veteran character actor John Randolph had originally played the part, but the Seinfeld brain trust were looking for someone more adept in the art of comedy. In an interview with Esquire magazine, Stiller remembered being out of work at the time and closing in on seventy years of age. The part asked him to play Frank Costanza as meek and the “Thurberesque husband” of Estelle. He had something else in mind, gave it a shot, and it worked like a charm. Stiller breathed life into the Frank Costanza character that fans will long remember and appreciate.
Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara have two children: actors Ben Stiller and Amy Stiller. In 2000, Simon & Schuster published the comedian’s well-received memoir, Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara.
Estelle Harris: Non-Dulcet Tones
Estelle Nussbaum was born in New York City on April 4, 1928, to Polish-Jewish immigrants Isaac and Anna Nussbaum. While growing up on the gritty streets of old New York, Harris’s parents owned and operated a candy store. The family subsequently moved to Tarentum, Pennsylvania, just northeast of Pittsburgh. Young Estelle attended Tarentum High School and recalls getting every part she auditioned for in school plays. She took on the comedic roles because she had an instinctual knack for making people laugh. Harris’s motto—then as well as now—is that audiences remember you when you make them happy, and not when you make them miserable. In 1953, she married Sy Harris, whom she met at a dance, and promptly put thoughts of an acting career on ice.
Sy and Estelle Harris’s marriage has endured more than a half-century and produced three children—Eric, Glen, and daughter Taryn, who is a retired police officer—plus three grandkids. While her children were growing up, Harris acted in mostly amateur theater and was content with that. Eventually, she worked in dinner theater and landed a few spots in television commercials. This visibility—with her one-of-a-kind high-pitched and raspy voice—inevitably led to bigger and better things.
In 1977, at the age of forty-nine, Estelle Harris received her first movie credit: Irma in the movie Looking Up, starring Marilyn Chris and Dick Shawn. During the 1985–1986 season of the television sitcom Night Court, she appeared as a character called Easy Mary in three episodes. With encouragement from her son, Glen, a freelance publicist in Hollywood at the time, Harris auditioned for the role of George Costanza’s mother on Seinfeld. The actress admits to being initially perplexed at the script of “The Contest,” not realizing its premise and defining storyline. When she finally found out the nature of the episode’s subject matter—masturbation—she was floored, not believing for a moment that the scrupulous television censors would green-light the show. As for the role of Estelle Costanza, which has brought her everlasting fame, Harris says that she appreciated the humor inherent in the character, but didn’t relate to her on a human level. After all, with a husband like Frank and an only son who is the world’s biggest loser, Estelle Costanza has it pretty bad. Suffice it to say, Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris set the standard for “impossible parents” in the annals of the television sitcom. They also behaved as the orthodox television version of an elderly, bickering Jewish couple, despite the fact that Frank and Estelle Costanza’s ethnicities were never specifically addressed. However, Larry David referred to George Costanza in an interview as half-Jewish, and Jason Alexander said that when Estelle Harris was cast as his mother, one mystery was cleared up. George had a Jewish mother.
Since Seinfeld, Estelle Harris has parlayed her fame into a winning formula. After showing what she’s capable of as Estelle Costanza, she has landed numerous acting jobs. Estelle Harris’s golden years have been golden indeed. Her singular voice has been in demand time and again on television and in the movies. For instance, she provided the memorable voice for Mrs. Potato Head in Toy Story 2 (1999). Other notable voice work by Estelle includes Death’s mother on Family Guy, Thelma on the animated Disney sitcom The Proud Family (2001–2005), and Old Lady Bear in the Disney animated film Brother Bear (2003). In 2015, Harris appeared as “Granny Smith” in an ad for Redd’s Green Apple Ale.
The diminutive Harris—at five three—has also served as a spokesperson for Iams Senior Plus cat and dog foods. She’s an inveterate canine aficionado and is wont to talk about her four-legged friends, including a beloved Maltese who bears a striking resemblance to Zsa Zsa Gabor.
In 2013, Harris announced that she had skin cancer successfully removed from her nose; she wanted her fans to know that it wasn’t a nose job. And don’t be surprised if you run into her at garage sales, for the actress is always on the prowl for antiques. Estelle Harris admits to this one addiction.