As you undoubtedly know by this time actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife have died, apparently stabbed to death by their own son. At Variety Chris Morris laments:
Rob Reiner, who segued from starring in “All in the Family” to directing movies including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and “When Harry Met Sally…” was found stabbed to death Sunday afternoon in his Brentwood home alongside his wife Michele Singer. He was 78.
The LAPD said in a statement that “Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Robert and Michele Reiner, was responsible for their deaths.” Nick Reiner is being held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles after being booked for murder.
“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,” his family said in a statement.
Reiner’s most recent film was “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” the sequel to the 1984 classic “This Is Spinal Tap.”
The son of the noted writer, director and comedian Carl Reiner, he first attracted attention as Michael “Meathead” Stivic, hippie son-in-law of Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted, blustering blue-collar worker Archie Bunker, during nine seasons of CBS’s topical sitcom. He collected Emmys as best supporting actor in a comedy in 1974 and 1978.
With credits as a writer on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “Happy Days” and “All in the Family” and a pair of TV movies under his belt, Reiner moved into big screen work as a director, writer and co-star in 1984’s “This is Spinal Tap,” the cherished, improvisational mockumentary about a thick-headed heavy metal band.
That project was succeeded during the next decade by a run of box office hits and popular favorites, which demonstrated his uncommon assurance working in a variety of genres. These included “Stand By Me” (1986), a coming-of-age drama with a youthful cast, adapted from a Stephen King short story; the fantasy “The Princess Bride” (1987); the new-look romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally…” (1989); another King adaptation, the thriller “Misery” (1990); and the Tom Cruise-Jack Nicholson court martial drama “A Few Good Men” (1992).
That run of films is remarkable not simply for its commercial success but for its range. Few directors have demonstrated comparable confidence moving between genres without leaving a signature of strain or self-consciousness behind. Reiner did not impose a stylistic “brand” on his films so much as an assurance of craftsmanship: a feel for structure, pacing, and performance that allowed very different kinds of stories to work on their own terms.
What is especially striking in retrospect is that several of these films have aged better than many more formally ambitious works of the same period. The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally… in particular have become cultural touchstones, quoted and revisited across generations, while Stand by Me and Misery remain effective because they take their material seriously rather than ironically. A Few Good Men now feels almost like a period piece—not because of its themes, but because of its confidence that institutions, however flawed, are still capable of producing moral drama.
I’ve read a number of encomiums of him but none made this particular point which I consider vital. Like Jackson Browne in popular music, Rob Reiner’s films portrayed the peculiar voice of his generation, the Baby Boomers, with uncanny accuracy. Ironic without being negative or, worse, nihilistic. Idealistic without being fatuous. In his films the hero always wins but the victory is frequently diluted with sorrow.
Consider, for example, the famous courtroom scene in A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson are stand-ins for their respective generations: Cruise, a Baby Boomer, coddled, opinionated, cocky, and right; Nicholson, of the Silent Generation, bitter, equally opinionated, and right in his own way but also tragically wrong.
We shall not see his like again. Just images flickering on a screen but images that will not be forgotten.
