Then, too, he wanted to memorialize Jerry and Anne — or Stiller and Meara, as they were better known in their performance heyday. A comedic duo whose banter catapulted them from the club circuit to household fame in the Ed Sullivan era, they were also a bridge from a midcentury Borscht Belt comedy style to one developed for the TV screen. For an audience of 30 million viewers, they played up their real-life identities as a husband and wife mismatched in culture and religion — in the years when interfaith unions were still rare. At home, they worked relentlessly on their routines, honing the razor timing that their son, who will turn 60 in November, absorbed and seeded through his own work.