Rob Reiner remembered for beloved films, iconic performances

Rob Reiner, the son of a comedy giant who became one himself with movies such as “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally…” and “This is Spinal Tap,” is being remembered for his iconic contributions to entertainment following the shocking news of his death.

Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, sources told CBS News. Police called it an “apparent homicide.”

“It 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,” their family said in a statement obtained by Variety.

Robert Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947. As a young man, he set out to follow in his father’s footsteps into entertainment. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles film school and, in the 1960s, began appearing in small parts in various television shows.

Reiner grew up thinking his father, Carl Reiner, didn’t understand him or find him funny. But the younger Reiner would in many ways follow his father’s footsteps, working both in front and behind the camera.

“My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,'” Reiner told  “60 Minutes” earlier this year, recalling the temptation to change his name. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?’ And I said, ‘Carl.’ I just wanted to be like him.”

He added, “Norman Lear was the first person that got me. I mean, I was playing jacks with his daughter. Norman says to my dad, ‘You know, this kid is really funny.’ And I think my dad said, ‘What? That kid?’ That kid? He’s a– s– sullen, he sits quiet. He doesn’t– you know, he’s not funny.'”

After starting out as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” Reiner’s breakthrough came when he was, at age 23, cast by producer and family friend Norman Lear in “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic. Reiner told “60 Minutes” that he thought the show would only last 13 weeks – but it went on to air for eight years, five of them as the top show in the country.

“I remember reading the script and thinking, this is such good writing, this is so edgy and so brilliant,” he told “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2010. “There’s no way that this is going to fly on American television.”

Reiner was five times nominated for an Emmy for his performance on the show, winning in 1974 and 1978. In Lear, Reiner also found a mentor. He called him “a second father.”

It was during the end of his stint on the show that he came up with the idea for his first film: the largely improvised 1984 cult classic “This is Spinal Tap.”

“Well, people would say, ‘I can’t believe your first movie would be– improvised, there’d be no script. And– that’s scary.’ And, to me, it was the opposite. I wasn’t scared,” he told “60 Minutes.”

The film kicked off a four-year stretch that resulted in a trio of American classics – “Stand By Me” (1986), “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “When Harry Met Sally …” (1989) – all of them among the most often quoted movies of the 20th century.

Reiner told “60 Minutes” that his adaptation of the Stephen King novella “The Body”, 1986’s “Stand by Me” was in many ways based on his relationship with his father. The movie, about four boys who go looking for the dead body of a missing boy, became a coming-of-age classic, making breakthroughs of its young cast (particularly River Phoenix).

“I’m writing this scene, I’m crying. I actually cry. When I was making it I knew that he loved me and he did understand me, but as a little boy that’s what I felt,” he said.

With his stock rising, Reiner devoted himself to adapting William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride,” a 1973 book Reiner had loved since his father gave him a copy as a gift. Everyone from François Truffaut to Robert Redford had considered adapting Goldman’s book, but it ultimately fell to Reiner (from Goldman’s own script) to capture the unique comic tone of “The Princess Bride.” But only once he had Goldman’s blessing.

“At the door he greeted me and he said, ‘This is my baby. I want this on my tombstone. This is my favorite thing I’ve ever written in my life. What are you going to do with it?'” Reiner recalled in a Television Academy interview. “And we sat down with him and started going through what I thought should be done with the film.”

Though only a modest success in theaters, the movie — starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, André the Giant and Robin Wright — would grow in stature over the years, leading to countless impressions of Inigo Montoya’s vow of revenge and the risky nature of land wars in Asia.

For the next four decades, Reiner, a warm and gregarious presence on screen and an outspoken liberal advocate off 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.”

“What are we, crazy to do another one? It’s crazy,” Reiner told “60 Minutes” about the sequel. “The bar is just way too high.”

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 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.

That ran in the family, too. Reiner’s father opposed the Communist hunt of McCarthyism in the 1950s and his mother, Estelle Reiner, a singer and actor, protested the Vietnam War.

“If you’re a nepo baby, doors will open,” Reiner told the Guardian in 2024. “But you have to deliver. If you don’t deliver, the door will close just as fast as it opened.”

Reiner was married to Penny Marshall, the actor and filmmaker, for 10 years beginning in 1971. Like Reiner, Marshall experienced sitcom fame with “Laverne & Shirley,” but found a more lasting legacy behind the camera.

After their divorce, Reiner, at a lunch with Nora Ephron, suggested a comedy about dating. In writing what became “When Harry Met Sally …”, Ephron and Reiner charted a relationship between a man and a woman (played in the film by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) over the course of 12 years.

Along the way, the movie’s ending changed, as did some of the film’s indelible moments. The famous line, “I’ll have what she’s having,” said after witnessing Ryan’s fake orgasm at Katz’s Delicatessen, was a suggestion by Crystal — delivered by none other than Reiner’s mother, Estelle.

“I’m pounding the table, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ And I’m realizing I’m having an orgasm in front of my mother, you know? There’s my mother over there,” Reiner told “60 Minutes.” 

The movie’s happy ending also had some real-life basis. Reiner met Singer, a photographer, on the set of “When Harry Met Sally …” In 1989, they were wed. They had three children together: Nick, Jake and Romy.

Reiner’s subsequent films included another King adaptation, “Misery” (1990) and a pair of Aaron Sorkin-penned dramas: the military courtroom tale “A Few Good Men” (1992) and 1995’s “The American President.”

By the late ’90s, Reiner’s films (1996’s “Ghosts of Mississippi,” 2007’s “The Bucket List”) no longer had the same success rate. But he remained a frequent actor, often memorably enlivening films like “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013). In 2023, he directed the documentary “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.”

In the interview with “60 Minutes” this year, Reiner said he never had any idea if his films would work.

“If I like it, then I say, ‘Well, at least I like it,'” Reiner said. “Hopefully somebody else is gonna like it.”