Actress and singer Estelle Reiner died 25 October 2008 of natural causes. Born Estelle Lebost on 5 June 1914 in the Bronx, New York, she may be best remembered as Carl Reiner’s wife and Rob Reiner’s mother. Her most famous role—a single line in one of her son’s movies—has been immortalized at #33 on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movie Quotes: in When Harry Met Sally (1989), following Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm in the deli, Estelle Reiner’s single line, “I’ll have what she’s having,” will be long remembered.
She had several other roles in her husband’s and son’s films, including a bit part in The Man with Two Brains (1983).
She began her adult life as a painter and visual artist, meeting Carl Reiner while she was designing sets for shows at hotel-resorts in the Catskills). She embarked on a new career in her 60s: cabaret singer (she recorded several CDs, and continued performing regularly into 2005).
Estelle married Carl Reiner on 24 December 1943, and is survived by him, as well as two sons—Rob and Lucas—daughter Annie, and five grandchildren.