‘Homicide’ eyed in death of US actor-director Rob Reiner, wife
Authorities are keeping a lid on details of the investigation into the death of Hollywood actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife, who were found dead inside their Los Angeles home on Sunday.
Capt. Mike Bland with the Los Angeles Police Department said authorities were investigating an “apparent homicide.”
Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood after the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m.
Rob Reiner was the son of comedy giant Carl Reiner, who played Saul Bloom in Ocean’s 11. He died in June 2020.
Reiner himself rose as one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation with movies such as “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally…” and “This Is Spinal Tap.”
He was 78.
Reiner grew up thinking his father didn’t understand him or find him funny. But the younger Reiner would in many ways follow in his father’s footsteps, working both in front and behind the camera, in comedies that stretched from broad sketch work to accomplished dramadies.
‘Poor kid’
“My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,’” Reiner, recalling the temptation to change his name to “60 Minutes” in October. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?’ And I said, ‘Carl.’ I just wanted to be like him.”
After starting out as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” Reiner’s breakthrough came when he was at age 23, cast in Norman Lear’s “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic. But by the 1980s, Reiner began as a feature film director, churning out some of the most beloved films of that, or any, era. His first film, the largely improvised 1984 cult classic “This Is Spinal Tap,” remains the urtext mockumentary.
After the 1985 John Cusack summer comedy, “The Sure Thing,” Reiner made “Stand By Me” (1986), “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “When Harry Met Sally…” (1989), a four-year stretch that resulted in a trio of American classics, all of them among the most often quoted movies of the 20th century.
‘Outspoken liberal’
For the next four decades, Reiner, a warm and gregarious presence on screen and an outspoken liberal advocate of it, remained a constant fixture in Hollywood.
The production company he co-founded, Castle Rock Entertainment, launched an enviable string of hits, including “Seinfeld” and “The Shawshank Redemption.” By the turn of the century, its success rate had fallen considerably, but Reiner revived it earlier this decade. This fall, Reiner and Castle Rock released the long-in-coming sequel “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”
All the while, Reiner was one of the film industry’s most passionate Democrat activists, regularly hosting fundraisers and campaigning for liberal issues.
He was co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which challenged in court California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition (Prop) 8.
He also chaired the campaign for Prop 10, a California initiative to fund early childhood development services with a tax on tobacco products. Reiner was also a critic of President Donald Trump.
