F-E-S-T-I-V-U-S: Jerry Stiller’s ‘Rest of Us’ Moxie
https://moxietalk.com/jerry-stiller/
Frank Costanza didn’t appear until the fifth season of Seinfeld, and he was only featured in 30 of 180 episodes.
And yet in that handful of episodes, Frank Costanza managed to give us Festivus, seething rage over a rejected loaf of marble rye, and “Serenity Now!”
If you were alive in the 90s or just really love great television, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Jerry Stiller breathed such life — or maybe it was the rage? — into the character Frank Costanza that it only took a handful of episodes for him to leave an indelible mark on pop culture.
It takes moxie to create such a memorable character, and Jerry Stiller had it. Here’s how:
Moxie knows laughs are serious business.
The opportunity to play Frank Costanza came along late in Stiller’s career. He’d spent decades as half of the Stiller and Meara comedy team. The other half was his “better half,” his wife Anne Meara.
Stiller’s career in show business started in the 1950s after he graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree…
