Ben Stiller on Thursday dropped by the Today show to share stories about his late father, show business icon Jerry Stiller.
The Seinfeld star died May 11. He was 92.
Stiller said in the interview that his father was the complete opposite of the cantankerous Frank Costanza; he never raised his voice to his children and was rarely angry. Ben explained his father was overprotective of his children, telling the story about when Jerry was stopped by police for looking suspicious because he was following his son in his car while the boy walked to his first day of school.
That level of protection did not stop, even after Stiller became an adult, he told Today‘s Savannah Guthrie, recalling a time 15 years ago when he and his family happened to be living in the same New York City apartment building as his parents.
“A movie came out and it got a bad review that I was in, and there was a note slipped under my door the morning after from my dad saying, ‘I read the review in the [New York] Times, don’t worry, I’m gonna write to the guy and take care of it.’ That was my dad,” Stiller said.
