More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Said a spokesperson for the family: \u201cIt is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n Citing \u201cmultiple sources,\u201d People reported<\/a> that the Reiners\u2019 son Nick, 32, is the suspected killer. He battled drug addiction and homelessness, had more than a dozen stints in rehab and co-wrote a film loosely based on his life, Being Charlie (2015), that was directed by his father.<\/p>\n Near the scene Sunday just before 9 p.m., LAPD chief of detectives Alan Hamilton said \u201cwe have not identified a suspect at this time,\u201d there \u201cwas no person of interest\u201d and that many family members would be interviewed.<\/p>\n The Los Angeles Fire Department had been called to the Reiners\u2019 home at about 3:40 p.m. by an unidentified person, and LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detectives were investigating.<\/p>\n The Princess Bride (1987), Misery\u00a0(1990), the Oscar best picture nominee A Few Good Men (1992), The American President (1995) and\u00a0The Bucket List (2007) also were among Rob Reiner\u2019s 20-plus directing credits.<\/p>\n Reiner was also a co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company behind such films as City Slickers (1991), The Shawshank Redemption<\/a> (1994), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Miss Congeniality (2000), Best in Show (2000), Michael Clayton (2007) and Seinfeld, one of the most lucrative television properties of all time.<\/p>\n From the outset of his feature directorial career with\u00a0This Is Spinal Tap\u00a0(1984), Reiner seemed to reimagine Hollywood standards, creating and starring in the first mainstream mockumentary \u2014 a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll satire so dead-on, film critic Roger Ebert called it<\/a> \u201cone of the funniest movies ever made.\u201d From there, he would move seamlessly from comedy to drama, from fantasy to horror, as few directors ever have.<\/p>\n Reiner would establish yet another benchmark \u2014 this time for romantic comedies \u2014 with When Harry Met Sally<\/a> (1989), screenwriter Nora Ephron\u2019s ode to true love (based loosely on her and Reiner\u2019s lives) that starred Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.<\/p>\n His biggest box office hit, the gripping courtroom drama\u00a0A Few Good Men, based on Aaron Sorkin\u2019s 1989 play and starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, could not have been more different.<\/p>\n Some of Reiner\u2019s movies took a while to capture the world\u2019s attention. The Princess Bride, his timeless fairy tale adventure that was based on the William Goldman<\/a> novel and starred Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin and Peter Falk, was one of several films that grew in popularity over decades on the way to cult status.<\/p>\n On television, Reiner played to some of the biggest audiences in history, first in the role of Michael \u201cMeathead\u201d Stivic, the liberal antagonist of Carroll O\u2019Connor\u2019s Archie Bunker, on CBS\u2019 All in the Family, and then as a ground-floor executive on NBC\u2019s Seinfeld, which he fought to keep on the air.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew we had a great show,\u201d Reiner told<\/a> Howard Stern in 2016.<\/p>\n But after a rocky launch in the summer of 1989, the network was concerned that\u00a0Seinfeld\u00a0\u2014 famously a show \u201cabout nothing\u201d \u2014 was a misfire. After four episodes, it was on the brink of cancellation.<\/p>\n \u201cI went in there and had a screaming crazy thing with [NBC president] Brandon Tartikoff,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cAnd I promised him \u2014 there\u00a0will\u00a0be\u00a0stories!\u201d<\/p>\n In 1993, Reiner and Castle Rock partners Andrew Scheinman, Alan Horn, Glenn Padnick and Martin Shafer sold their company to broadcast mogul Ted Turner for about $160 million. (It became part of Time Warner when it acquired Turner Broadcasting in 1996.)<\/p>\n The principals stayed on, holding to their original ideal: to make independent movies outside the traditional studio system. But after a run of poorly performing films starting in the late \u201990s, Castle Rock initiated layoffs and eventually was absorbed into Warner Bros.<\/p>\n In 2020, Reiner relaunched the company and revived its film division<\/a> a year later, with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) among its offerings.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not one film that I\u2019ve ever made that could get made today by a studio, not one \u2014 even\u00a0A Few Good Men,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cEvery movie that I make, have made and will make is always going to be independently financed.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his behind-the-camera career, Reiner continued as a working actor. He played the well-intentioned plastic surgeon Dr. Morris Packman, who affectionately spars<\/a> with Goldie Hawn, in\u00a0The First Wives Club\u00a0(1996); Tom Hanks\u2019 pal in Ephron\u2019s Sleepless in Seattle (1993); and the father of Zooey Deschanel on the 2011-18 Fox sitcom\u00a0New Girl.<\/p>\n He was particularly memorable<\/a> in Martin Scorsese\u2019s The Wolf of Wall Street\u00a0(2013) as stockbroker Max Belfort in scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill that were largely improvised.<\/p>\n Reiner\u2019s sense of what worked onscreen was honed early on \u2014 first at home as the oldest child of comedy icon Carl Reiner<\/a> and later around his dad\u2019s close friends, among them Sid Caesar<\/a>, Neil Simon<\/a>, Mel Brooks and the most influential of all, Norman Lear<\/a>, the TV auteur whose 1970s activist comedies\u00a0All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude sparked seismic shifts in popular culture.<\/p>\n \u201cNorman was the first guy who recognized that I had any talent,\u201d Reiner wrote for The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> in the wake of Lear\u2019s 2023 death, noting that he viewed him as \u201ca second father.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just that he hired me for\u00a0All in the Family,\u201d Reiner told American Masters in 2005. \u201cIt was that I saw, in how he conducted his life, that there was room to be an activist as well. That you could use your celebrity, your good fortune, to help make some change.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Hollywood scion forged his directing career, it was Lear who put up the money for\u00a0Stand by Me\u00a0(1986) and Reiner\u2019s other early films, including the John Cusack-Nicollette Sheridan romp\u00a0The Sure Thing (1985), lauded for elevating the teen comedy genre.<\/p>\n Stand by Me\u00a0\u2014 regarded as among the finest of coming-of-age movies \u2014 marked Reiner\u2019s ascent into Hollywood\u2019s highest ranks, no longer just a sitcom actor or the genial ex-husband of a fellow TV comic, Penny Marshall<\/a>, star of\u00a0Laverne & Shirley. (Marshall too would go on to become a top Hollywood director.)<\/p>\n Famed author-screenwriter Goldman, who penned the\u00a0Misery\u00a0screenplay, said Reiner became a success because his work is \u201cfunny, but not simpy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis films have a certain comedy style \u2026 a sweetness and toughness,\u201d Goldman told<\/a> The New York Times in 1987. \u201cStand by Me\u00a0is not just about four kids coming of age before junior high school \u2014 they\u2019re going to see a corpse. If John Hughes had made\u00a0Stand by Me<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and I\u2019m not knocking Hughes \u2014 they would have been searching for a convertible.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephen King, author of the 1982 novella\u00a0The Body (on which\u00a0Stand by Me\u00a0was based) and the 1987 novel Misery, became one of Reiner\u2019s most-steadfast collaborators.<\/p>\n Among other King books turned into movies by Castle Rock \u2014 Reiner named the company for the fictional setting in many of the author\u2019s novels \u2014 were\u00a0Shawshank, The Green Mile (1999)and\u00a0Dolores Claiborne\u00a0(1995).<\/p>\n After several false starts, King finally agreed to develop\u00a0Misery<\/a>\u00a0for the screen, but only if Reiner put \u201chis name on it\u201d as producer or director.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very personal book to him,\u201d Reiner told<\/a> TCM in 2021. \u201cIt was all about himself as a writer and feeling trapped \u2026 And so he let us option the book for $1. In fact, I think we made seven Stephen King films, and each one of them we got an option for $1.\u201d<\/p>\n The 1990 Kathy Bates-James Caan<\/a> starrer remains one of Hollywood\u2019s finest horror pieces, with Bates winning an Oscar for her role as the obsessive fan Annie Wilkes, who tortures author Paul Sheldon (Caan) while holding him hostage in her remote cabin.<\/p>\n \u201cRob had a fantastic crew of people \u2014 people he had worked with for years, just the creme de la creme,\u201d Bates said<\/a> of the\u00a0Misery\u00a0shoot in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair. \u201cI learned so much just hanging out [on set] and watching.\u201d<\/p>\n Bates, 42 years old at the time, had predominantly been a stage actress. At the Academy Awards, where she bested Meryl Streep, Joanne Woodward, Anjelica Huston and Julia Roberts, she thanked Reiner \u201cfor taking a chance on me.\u201d<\/p>\n Often the most memorable scenes in Reiner\u2019s filmography came from his comedies \u2014 notably Ryan\u2019s climactic moment in\u00a0When Harry Met Sally in which she feigns an orgasm<\/a> over lunch with Crystal\u2019s character at Katz\u2019s Deli.<\/p>\n Yet it was Reiner\u2019s mother, Estelle Reiner<\/a>, who landed the film\u2019s renowned punchline: \u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said to her, mom, the line you have is the last line in the scene, and if it doesn\u2019t pop and top everything that\u2019s come before it, I won\u2019t use it,\u201d Reiner told<\/a> the AFI in a joint interview with Ephron in 2009. \u201cWe\u2019ll shoot it but be prepared, it might have to be cut.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd she said, \u2018I don\u2019t care, I just wanna spend the day with you and be with you on the set. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s in the movie or not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Reiner\u00a0was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947, one of three children of the former Estelle Lebost, an artist and set designer, and Carl Reiner, the comic and writer who got his start as an entertainer in the U.S. Army and then in Broadway musicals.<\/p>\n The family lived just off Grand Concourse, across the street from Marshall and her brother, future writer-producer-director Garry Marshall<\/a>. But it would be decades before Rob and Penny actually met \u2014 at the 1970 audition in Los Angeles for the roles of Mike and Gloria Stivik on\u00a0All in the Family. (The role of Gloria, of course, would go to Sally Struthers.)<\/p>\n As Carl\u2019s career gained steam (he would win 11 Emmys), the family moved to Bonnie Meadow Road in the bucolic New York suburb of New Rochelle. It was the very street where Reiner would set his landmark 1960s CBS sitcom\u00a0The Dick Van Dyke Show, about a rising comedy writer, Rob Petrie, and his beautiful wife, Laura.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically he wrote his own life in\u00a0The Dick Van Dyke Show,\u201d Rob Reiner said of his father. \u201cAnd my mother was Mary Tyler Moore<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Rob got his start as an apprentice at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania and with small guest roles on such shows as\u00a0That Girl, Room 222\u00a0and\u00a0The Beverly Hillbillies.\u00a0<\/p>\n After UCLA Film School in 1967, he was paired with another young comic, Steve Martin, as a writing team on CBS\u2019\u00a0The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The two were barely out of their teens.<\/p>\n The\u00a0All in the Family\u00a0role, for which Reiner would\u00a0win two Emmys, followed in 1971. Convinced the show\u2019s incendiary subject matter would be rejected by viewers, he initially viewed the gig as a stopgap to tide him over between writing gigs.<\/p>\n When the sitcom became a hit (Reiner stayed for eight of its nine seasons), he continued writing anyway, penning four episodes of the show<\/a> and co-writing (with Garry Marshall and Phil Mishkin) the first episode of ABC\u2019s Happy Days in 1974.<\/p>\n As a filmmaker notably surrounding himself with many of the industry\u2019s top writers \u2014 Goldman, King, Sorkin, Ephron, Crystal \u2014 Reiner showcased their dialogue to everlasting effect.<\/p>\n The Princess Bride\u2019s\u00a0\u201cHello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die\u201d<\/a>; Misery\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m your No. 1 fan\u201d;\u00a0A Few Good Men\u2019s\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t handle the truth\u201d; and\u00a0When Harry Met Sally\u2019s\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having\u201d (Crystal actually came up with that line) reigned in pop culture for decades.<\/p>\n But as Penny Marshall would humorously point out, no matter how substantive their accomplishments, \u201cFor me, all they say is \u2018Laverne,\u2019 and for Rob \u2026 it\u2019s \u2018Meathead,\u2019\u201d she told<\/a> the New Yorker in 2012. \u201cWe\u2019re stuck with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple performed together infrequently but did co-star in the well-received 1978 romantic comedy More Than Friends<\/a>.\u00a0The ABC telefilm, written by Reiner and Mishkin and directed by James Burrows, was something of a precursor to\u00a0When Harry Met Sally, about childhood pals unsure if they should pursue love as adults.<\/p>\n Reiner also made an appearance as \u201cSheldn\u201d (no \u201co\u201d), the fianc\u00e9 of Penny\u2019s Myrna Turner, on Garry Marshall\u2019s ABC series\u00a0The Odd Couple.<\/p>\n Their 10-year marriage came to an end in 1981 \u2014 amid tension as\u00a0Laverne & Shirley\u00a0shot Marshall to superstardom while Reiner was quietly forging his post-sitcom film career.<\/p>\n Upon Marshall\u2019s death in 2018, Reiner professed his admiration for her, tweeting \u201cso sad about Penny.\u201d He added, \u201cI loved Penny. I grew up with her. She was born with a great gift. She was born with a funny bone and the instinct of how to use it. I was very lucky to have lived with her and her funny bone. I will miss her.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple were the parents of actress Tracy Reiner, born in 1964 to Marshall during a brief first marriage and adopted by Reiner soon after their 1971 wedding.<\/p>\n In 1989, Reiner married Michele Singer, a photographer whom he met on the set of\u00a0When Harry Met Sally. He said she was the inspiration for the film\u2019s happily-ever-after script change. In 2020, she joined Reiner in running Castle Rock and produced films.<\/p>\n In addition to Nick, the couple had two other children, son Jake and daughter Romy.<\/p>\n A lifelong political activist who with King was among the public figures to urge President Joe Biden to hand the 2024 re-election reins to Kamala Harris, Reiner rarely missed a week on social media, penning calls to action on a range of social justice issues for his millions of followers.<\/p>\n He was among Hollywood\u2019s most vigorous and constant voices opposing Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Among his other causes, Reiner was the co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which fought to overturn California\u2019s ban on same-sex marriage. In the late-\u201990s, he and his father were activists for higher taxes on cigarettes \u2014 money that was earmarked for prenatal care.<\/p>\n His advocacy was often part of his writing and filmmaking, from his earliest days with the Smothers brothers to LBJ (2016) and Shock and Awe (2017), about journalists investigating the Bush administration\u2019s 2003 invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n Reiner was often a Hollywood peacemaker, well known for putting actors and crew at ease. When Bates and Caan clashed early in the production of Misery (she liked rehearsing; he preferred winging it), Reiner brokered a wary peace while using the tension to elicit superb performances.<\/p>\n \u201cI want everyone around me to feel comfortable and happy,\u201d he told<\/a> The Guardian in 2018. \u201cPeople only act up out of insecurity, and when they make it difficult, I just say, \u2018We\u2019re playing make-believe here \u2014 enjoy yourself!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mike Barnes, Kimberly Nordyke and Scott Feinberg contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner, who directed such beloved Hollywood classics as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me and\u00a0When Harry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":448306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[206088,185,171,206146,206147,206148,206091,118515,106921,206150,206149,36770,206089,67,132,68,206145],"class_list":{"0":"post-448305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-carl-reiner","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-estelle-reiner","12":"tag-michele-singer-reiner","13":"tag-nick-reiner","14":"tag-penny-marshall","15":"tag-rob-reiner","16":"tag-robin-wright","17":"tag-rony-reiner","18":"tag-the-dick-van-dyke-show","19":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter","20":"tag-tracy-reiner","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-when-harry-met-sally"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115722767527016072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0add30ada531c94a60d0ea7c6843f427.jpeg\"\/)
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