All in the Family

Unlike Billie Holiday, Estelle Reiner will never pen an autobiography quite like “Lady Sings the Blues.” When your husband is comedian Carl Reiner and your son is director Rob Reiner, and you count among your closest amigos Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Norman Lear and Dom DeLuise, chances are that your life is pretty darn upbeat. Yet Estelle shares the legendary chanteuse’s passion for jazz and lounge music — her next singing engagement will be at the Gardenia on June 29.

Estelle has recorded five albums, including “Just in Time” and “Hurry Home.” The material she covers ranges from Berlin (“Blue Skies”) and Porter (“Let’s Do It”) to recent gems by witty composer Dave Frishberg (“Let’s Eat Home”). Estelle stakes a different course on her latest CD, “Ukelele Mama,” which features more uke than an album by Hawaiian crooner Alfred Apaka. She will pick up the ukelele again on her next album.

Most people recognize Estelle as the punchline to one of Hollywood’s most memorable movie moments: her “When Harry Met Sally” cameo in Katz’s Deli, where she one-ups Meg Ryan’s faux orgasmic public display with the unforgettable one-liner, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Lounging in her Beverly Hills living room, Estelle recalls the day when the film’s director, who happens to be her oldest son, was leaving her house and “as an afterthought, he said, ‘Mom, there’s a very good line in the movie and you’ll have to come to New York and it may get cut because it doesn’t advance the plot.'”

Of course, the line remained, and while she had a wonderful day on the set, “it was very uncomfortable for Rob,” who had to mentor Ryan through her sexual outburst by acting it out.

“He said, ‘Here I am having an orgasm in front of my mother,” remembers Estelle with a laugh. “That killed him.”

With husband Carl’s directorial efforts including early Steve Martin classics (“The Jerk,” “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”) and son Rob having helmed “Harry,” “This Is Spinal Tap” and “Princess Bride” (not to mention portraying Mike “Meathead” Stivic on the groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family”), one might think that Estelle would hatch her own comedies. Even her acting breakthrough, the 1980 Dom DeLuise film “Fatso,” was directed by longtime friend Anne Bancroft (Brooks’ wife).

“My talent is not in film, but I’m sure of my singing,” says Estelle, who cites Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald as influences. She has performed at Michael’s Pub in New York. But it was her acting turn in “Fatso” that inspired her professional singing career.

“That was a big change for me because it was my first time out of my house,” Estelle says. She refined her acting skills with legendary thespian trainer Lee Strasberg, who singled out her performance in “Fatso” before they even met, she says.

In walks Carl. He sits next to his wife, and soon, the couple gushes with pride over Brooks’ professional renaissance with his record-breaking Broadway adaptation of “The Producers.” Both Carl and Estelle hail from the Bronx, but they did not meet until the 1940s, during a summer up in the Berkshires, where Carl made $37.50 a week playing second banana in sketches and Estelle worked set design. Then came the war, and Carl served. Then his ascension as part of the legendary “Your Show of Shows” TV show, where he met Brooks and crafted classic bits (“2,000 Year Old Man”). Estelle adds that Brooks, a noted songwriter himself, has been an enthusiastic fan of her music. There’s a lyric in a song that she performs referencing a pair of brown shoes that, if Mel is in the house, will be his cue to deposit a pair of obnoxious brown wing-tips onstage.

“In our famly, she’s the only one who has this enormous talent,” Carl said. “Thank God! I’m arhythmic and I sing off key!”

A huge jazz fan himself, Carl is still beside himself recalling the day in the Berkshires when Estelle performed with Sidney Bichet; an era, he says, when only Jewish dancehalls were employing early jazz legends.

“Estelle happened to be there,” remembers Carl. “She picked it up on ‘Lover Man.’ [Trombonist] Sandy Williams said, ‘That lady should record!'”

Estelle gratuitously credits her musicians, including pianist Tom Garvin and sax man Pete Christlieb. But the question remains: when will she record a song copping her famous screen quip? A jazz song titled “I’ll Have What She’s Having” sounds like a natural.

“Somebody already tried writing one for me,” she says, “but I didn’t like it.”

Estelle Reiner plays the Gardenia, 7066 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, on June 29. For more information, call (323) 467-7444. For more about Reiner’s music, visit www.estellereiner.com