MIKE STEWART
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a "second banana" to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy's front ranks as creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and straight man to Mel Brooks' "2000 Year Old Man," has died. He was 98.
Reiner's assistant Judy Nagy said he died Monday night of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
He was one of show business' best liked men. The tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens: In Caesar's 1950s troupe as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and in such films as "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
In recent years, he was part of the ro
