Ben Stiller — actor with roots in the Russian Empire
Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller was born in New York City on 30 November 1965, the son of the comedy partners Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. His connection to the Russian Empire runs through one grandparent, and it has to be stated precisely, because the rest of the family's European past lay elsewhere.
His father's mother, Bella Citron (1902-1954), was born in Frampol, a small town in the Lublin Governorate. Frampol had been Austrian from 1795, passed to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1809, and from 1815 belonged to Congress Poland, the part of the Polish lands held by the Russian Empire. The imperial census of 1897 counted 1,251 Jews there. Bella emigrated to New York and married William Stiller (1896-1999), a taxi and bus driver; their eldest child, Gerald Isaac, was born in Brooklyn in 1927. Bella died in 1954, eleven years before her grandson was born.
William Stiller's parents came from Galicia, the Habsburg crown land to the south. Galicia was Austrian, not Russian, so that line is not the basis of the connection. Anne Meara was of Irish Catholic family and converted to Judaism before her children were born.
His parents performed together as Stiller and Meara and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show thirty-six times; Jerry Stiller later played Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. Ben began by writing short mockumentaries, which led to The Ben Stiller Show, broadcast on MTV in 1990 and on Fox in 1992-93. It won him a Primetime Emmy for writing in 1993.
He made his debut as a film director with Reality Bites (1994), followed by The Cable Guy (1996). As an actor he became known for There's Something About Mary (1998) and Meet the Parents (2000), and he directed and starred in Zoolander (2001), Tropic Thunder (2008) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). Father and son worked together on eleven films, Zoolander among them.
He later turned mainly to television, directing the limited series Escape at Dannemora (2018), which won him a Directors Guild of America Award, and directing and producing Severance from 2022. Jerry Stiller died in May 2020, aged ninety-two.
"Paternal grandmother Bella Citron (1902-1954) emigrated from Frampol, in the Lublin Governorate of Congress Poland, to New York, where she married William Stiller."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Frampol, Lublin Governorate, Congress Poland (now Poland)
His father's mother, Bella Citron (1902-1954), was born in Frampol, a town in the Lublin Governorate of Congress Poland - Russian Empire territory - and emigrated to New York. His father's paternal line came from Austrian Galicia, which was not part of the Russian Empire.
Grandmother Bella Citron, born 1902 in Frampol (Lublin Governorate, Congress Poland - Russian Empire). Grandfather William Stiller was born in New York to parents from Galicia (Austrian, not Russian). Mother Anne Meara was of Irish Catholic descent.
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Frampol, Lublin Governorate, Congress Poland (now Poland). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.