HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Hasty Pudding player J. Patrick Coyne '07 guides Man of the Year Ben Stiller and his wife, actress Christine Taylor, on a tour of Harvard Yard. Staff photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office

When he was still a teenager, actor and Frat Packer Ben Stiller dropped out of film school at UCLA after nine months. But the 41-year-old entertainment polymath - a veteran actor, producer, and director - got another chance at going to college today (Feb. 23) as Man of the Year for Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the oldest student thespian society in the United States.

Stiller's first assignment at Harvard was part of the Hasty tradition: a 30-minute tour of Harvard Yard, from the Johnston Gate to the Memorial Church, and then back for a few moments of banter beneath John Harvard's statue, and its rubbed-for-luck gleaming left boot. Overhead the skies were blue; the temperature, just at the freezing mark, was sharpened by a brisk wind.

The Manhattan native, with stylishly long graying hair and chewing gum, was dressed for the Northeast weather: scuffed black boots, jeans, and a pin-striped topcoat with the collar turned up. Beside him in high spiked heels, looking coolly Hollywood in cold Cambridge, was Christine Taylor, Stiller's wife and his co-star in "Zoolander" and "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story."

The tour guide was J. Patrick Coyne '07 of Quincy House, a Hasty Pudding player from Cleveland. He led Stiller through the Yard and around a few standard stories: the fire at Harvard Hall; the 13 million volumes at Widener Library; a young Gertrude Stein at Emerson Hall, who decided it was too nice outside to take a final exam in philosophy.

A half dozen other Hasty Pudding thespians, neatly decked out in sober black overcoats, had left their drag queen clothes at home for the afternoon. They backed Coyne up on the tour, following after a low-key, smiling - and nearly wordless - Ben Stiller.

As a parting salute of winter, a cascade of heavy snow slid off the roof at Memorial Church, just missing the tour party.

At the John Harvard Statue, the actor passed his first Harvard exam, by guessing at two of the famous statue's three lies. (The third - it's not John Harvard - he did not know.) And Stiller added a fashion tip, aimed at the bronze statue: "His belt is off." (It's skewed to the left. Coyne called it a sign of cool.)

Crossing Massachusetts Avenue, the tour party headed for Alpha Omega, a Harvard Square watch and diamond specialty shop - and longtime Hasty Pudding supporter. Stiller paused at the front door to pose with a fan for a cell phone camera picture. "Hi," she said, putting her arm around him. "I'm Nora."

Upstairs at the shop came the brief tour's most charming moment: a two-song concert by the Radcliffe Pitches, a 14-woman a cappella group in black dresses and high heels, lined up along the jewelry cases. Juli Min '09 of Leverett House led off with "Baby, I Love You," a tune Aretha Franklin made famous. Annie Knickman '09 of Pforzheimer House knocked out Irving Berlin's "You'd Be Surprised," and finished with Stiller twirling her in a brief ballroom dance.

Applauding the group, he said, "Thank you for not making me sing."

Later this afternoon, Stiller - the son of comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara - will lead a private seminar with Hasty Pudding actors. The entertainer has appeared in 47 films, produced eight, and directed four; and has at least four others in production. His television credits go back to 1987.

Tonight, just after 8 at the Zero Arrow Theatre, his drag queen hosts at Hasty Pudding will likely spoof a Stiller movie or two (Ben, reality bites); present the Pudding Pot (Stiller can put it next to his Emmy); then round off the actor's Harvard education with a black-tie premiere performance of this year's show, "The Tent Commandments."