Carl Reiner dead at 98, according to reports

Comedian, actor, writer and producer Carl Reiner died Monday at his home in Beverly Hills, according to multiple reports. He was 98.

Reiner’s assistant, Judy Nagy, confirmed to Variety that the legendary entertainer and father to comedian and filmmaker Rob Reiner died of natural causes.

Over a career that spanned seven decades, Reiner earned 11 Emmy Awards, including five for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” a Grammy Award and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

In the 1960s, Reiner was best known for creating, producing, writing and acting on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” according to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He told PBS in 2016 that he had never thought about a career in comedy growing up.

“I wanted to be an operatic tenor,” he said. “My father had these Red Seal records of Enrico Caruso. I lacked one thing — two things, actually, pitch and timing.”

His trajectory changed when he met director and comedian Mel Brooks on Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca’s variety program “Your Show of Shows.” Together they created the renowned two-man comedy skit “2000-Year-Old Man.”

“For about two-and-a-half-hours, Mel and I ad-libbed,” he told PBS in 2016. “I cut it down to 47 minutes, and the 2000-Year-Old Man was born.”

Check back for more on this developing story.

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