Singer-Actress Estelle Reiner Dies Jazz Vocalist, Wife of Carl Reiner October 30, 2008

Estelle Reiner

See Rob Reiner talk with the Archive of American Television about his mother, Estelle. Press play-arrow below

Beverly Hills, CA - Estelle Reiner, the wife of writer-director-actor Carl Reiner who later in life became a respected jazz singer and actress, died Saturday, October 25, in Beverly Hills. She was 94.

Reiner is perhaps best remembered to the public for a scene in the film When Harry Met Sally…, directed by her son, Rob Reiner. As Meg Ryan faked an orgasm during a conversation with Billy Crystal at New York City’s Katz's Deli, Reiner deadpanned, “I’ll have what she's having.”

Reiner also appeared in the film Fatso, directed by Anne Bancroft, and To Be or Not to Be, directed by Mel Brooks.

When Reiner was 65, she began a new career as a jazz singer. She continued performing in clubs in New York and Los Angeles until the age of 93, and released seven albums.

She was known for interspersing a repertoire of ballads and standards with more obscure jazz and blues songs such as “Handy Man” and “You Can Have My Husband (But Please Don’t Take My Man).”

She acquired an affinity for the blues in her teens, when she frequented the renowned Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Born Estelle Lebost in Bronx, NY, Reiner attended the National Academy of Design. During World War II she was the first female isometric draftsman employed at Sperry Rand, where she made blueprints for assembly workers building submarines and airplanes. She married Carl Reiner, now a Television Academy Hall of Fame inductee, while he was on a weekend pass from the Army in 1943.

As an artist, Reiner had four one-woman shows of her paintings in the 1970s. After raising her three children, actor-director, Rob; Annie, a writer and psychoanalyst; and Lucas, a painter, Reiner began a career as a performer, studying with Viola Spolin and Lee Strasberg.

In addition to her children and husband of 64 years, she is survived by five grandchildren.