During a 1963 appearance on The Tonight Show, comedian Carl Reiner said that a 16-year-old named Albert Einstein was the funniest person he knew.
That Albert Einstein was too young to be the famed physicist, of course. No, the Albert Einstein getting such high praise was a friend of Reiner’s son Rob.
Now, of course, the world knows Rob Reiner as the All in the Family actor who went on to direct the films Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, and A Few Good Men, among other cinematic favorites.
And that Albert Einstein — who still doesn’t know why his parents gave him that name — rebranded himself as Albert Brooks and starred in films like Lost in America, Broadcast News, and Defending Your Life. (To younger fans, though, Brooks is perhaps best known as the voice of Marlin in the Finding Nemo movies.)
For a new CBS News Sunday Morning segment, Brooks and the younger Reiner returned to Beverly Hills High School — where they met in drama class 60 years ago — visiting that alma mater for the first time since they graduated.
And six decades into their friendship, Reiner seems to just as much reverence for Brooks as he does the German guy. “He can’t split the atom, but he can create energy through laughter,” Reiner told CBS.
And so Reiner directed a documentary about Brooks, titled Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, now streaming on Max.
“I knew all the things that Albert had done. I knew how brilliant he was. I wanted them to know,” Reiner said.
Quipped Brooks, “There’s a lot of young people who, if they know me at all, they know me as a fish. You just would like to say, ‘You know, there’s more to it.’ And you can’t [say it] yourself on a street corner, ‘cause that’s mental illness: ‘Well, wait a minute, I’m not just a fish. Do you know that in 1975–’ ‘Look, I gotta, my car is here.’”
CBS News Sunday Morning, Sundays, 9/8c, CBS
Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, Streaming Now, Max
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