Rob Reiner, Legendary Director and Actor, and Wife Found Dead
By: Althea Legaspi (Rolling Stone)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Rob Reiner, Legendary Director and Actor, and Wife Found Dead
The beloved and outspoken auteur died alongside his wife Michele Singer on Sunday
Rob Reiner in 2022. Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
The beloved and outspoken auteur died alongside his wife Michele Singer on Sunday By Althea Legaspi, Tim Grierson December 14, 2025 Rob Reiner in 2022. Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
Rob Reiner, the legendary director and actor who rose to prominence in All in the Family and went on to direct the classic film comedies This Is Spinal Tap , The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally… , died at his Brentwood home in California on Sunday. He was 78 .
"It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner," his family said in a statement. "We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time."
The beloved and celebrated actor and director died with his wife, photographer Michele Singer, in what police are treating as an apparent homicide. According to the L.A. Times , authorities have questioned a member of Reiner's family in connection with the death. As of Sunday night, the LAPD said that they have not identified a suspect.
The couple were found dead Sunday afternoon. Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division detectives have been assigned to the case, NBC Los Angeles reports. Paramedics had been called to the home at around 3:30 p.m. and officers were dispatched after firefighters discovered a death.
Born March 6, 1947 in New York, Reiner was the son of Carl Reiner, a giant in television and film comedy who created The Dick Van Dyke Show and directed The Jerk . When Rob Reiner set out to make his own name, he tried not to ride his father's sizable coattails. "I didn't take any money from him," he recalled in 2016. "I didn't take any advice. … I knew I was going to get that [nepotism] stuff. … But I knew in my head what I had done."
While Reiner played several bit roles in popular television shows in the Sixties, including Batman and The Andy Griffith Show , and partnered with Steve Martin writing for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , his breakout role came in the Seventies playing the liberal Mike "Meathead" Stivic, the son-in-law of the cantankerous conservative Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) in Norman Lear's hit sitcom, All in the Family , which ran from 1971 through 1979 . Reiner won two Emmys for the portrayal.
During that time, he also guest starred on The Partridge Family and created the sitcom The Super , with Phil Mishkin and Gerry Isenberg, which aired in 1972.
But his artistic legacy was cemented by the string of wonderful, varied comedies he directed in the 1980s and '90s. With his 1984 debut This Is Spinal Tap , a mockumentary about a notoriously terrible U.K. metal band, Reiner worked with his stars and co-writers Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer to craft a heavily improvised film that made fun of rock-star egos and artistic pretensions. For Reiner, who was trying to make the leap from sitcom actor to movie director, the movie was a chance to prove himself to a skeptical industry.
"At that time," he wrote in the 2025 book A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap , "there was a big chasm in Hollywood between those who worked in television and those who worked in movies. The film people were considered royalty. They looked down on the lowly peasants of TV. Today, actors, writers, and directors easily shuttle between movies and television. But it wasn't until such sitcom alums as Ron Howard, Danny DeVito, Penny Marshall, and I, along with the TV writers Barry Levinson and Jim Brooks, were successfully directing movies in the Eighties that these dividing lines were erased."
He followed This Is Spinal Tap with the 1985 romantic comedy The Sure Thing , starring relative unknown John Cusack, but his next five films were indelible. Adapting Stephen King's novella The Body into Stand by Me , Reiner demonstrated his ability to elicit wonderfully lived-in performances from his young cast, which included Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell, launching their Hollywood careers. It remains a beloved coming-of-age tale that Reiner once claimed was the film that meant the most to him.
"[I]t was the first time I did a movie that really reflected my personality," he later said. "It has some melancholy in it, it has some emotion and it also has humor in it and the music was of my time… I think people relate to it. There's a line at the end of the movie where they say, '"You never have friends like you do when you are 12.'" And that's a true thing. When you bond with your friends when you are 12 years old, it's a very strong emotional bond."
This is a developing story…
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According to other reports Reiner and his wife were found stabbed to death. What a loss to the movie industry. I've enjoyed so many of his movies, watching many of them many times but never tiring of them or getting bored.
Some of the great movies Reiner has directed include Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, This Is Spinal Tap, Misery, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, The Bucket List, The Magic of Belle Isle, The American President, all of which I have enjoyed watching.
Although I disagreed with his world view, I recognize his talent as a director and at least one view he had. I will add one lesser-known movie to Buzz's list: He made a movie about LBJ in which he demonstrates Johnson's transformation from an ambitious power-hungry Senator to a liberal leader after the assassination of JFK. The movie is mostly about Johnson's passage of Kennedy's Civil Rights Act. I thought Reiner put forward a logical explanation for the reasons why and somehow made the movie interesting even while casting the likes of Woody Harelson as LBJ.
If I saw the movie LBJ, I don't remember it al all.
I just saw a news report that Rob Reiner's son Nick Reiner has just been arrested.
I saw it too. He had a monster drug problem.
He has now been charged with 2 counts of murder. I hope he gets the maximum sentence without any chance for parole. He is a useless person on our planet.
My bet is he / and lawyers are setting up some sort of insanity / diminished mental capacity plea. just a hunch and opinion amongst many .
Had or still has? I've seen reporting that he went to rehab 18 times by the time he was 22. In a way I feel sorry for him. He grew up in a fishbowl thanks to the success of his parents, that's a tough place to be as a kid.
There have been allegations made that he was battling a heroin addiction, additionally that he may also have been on stimulants such as methamphetamine. Meth does nasty things to the brain. I saw a WWII documentary recently where they talked about the 'secret' weapon the Nazi's had at the beginning of the war. They had warehouses stuffed full of meth. According to the documentary, it was an over-the-counter medication sold freely as a pick-me-up. And they talked about how taking meth would allow for them to operate for 2 or 3 days at a stretch rather than normal armies which take time to rest each day. It can also deaden the parts of the brain dealing with empathy allowing the addicted to kill without remorse.
Your talking about Pervitin . nasty shit from what i read .
Yep. Amazing that it was sold over the counter before the war. Some insight into it.
Nazi Germany and Methamphetamine | Blog | Primrose Lodge
It made him violent. I heard that he cut their throats.
I saw a WWII documentary recently where they talked about the 'secret' weapon the Nazi's had at the beginning of the war. They had warehouses stuffed full of meth. According to the documentary, it was an over-the-counter medication sold freely as a pick-me-up. And they talked about how taking meth would allow for them to operate for 2 or 3 days at a stretch rather than normal armies which take time to rest each day. It can also deaden the parts of the brain dealing with empathy allowing the addicted to kill without remorse.
Actually, I think that was to get them through food & supply shortages and of course below freezing temperatures on the eastern front. I still don't know how those guys did it.
Absolutely.
On of the nicest, down to earth people I have ever met. Of course it was years ago before Trump became such a PITA so I could not speak to his reported TDS that so offended the POTUS.
If I could speak at the funeral ( I won't be there) I would commend Rob for still being able to get under Trump's skin.
PITA? Isn't that a kind of bread?
Pai in the ass...
LOL. Okay, thanks for following that up. I'm not that good with acronyms.