{"id":90791,"date":"2025-12-15T18:05:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=90791"},"modified":"2025-12-16T02:14:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:14:48","slug":"rob-reiner-iconic-jewish-director-and-actor-found-dead-with-wife-michele-in-their-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/rob-reiner-iconic-jewish-director-and-actor-found-dead-with-wife-michele-in-their-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner, iconic Jewish director and actor, found dead with wife Michele in their home"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW LAPIN<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Rob Reiner, the beloved Jewish film director, actor and liberal activist, was found dead in his Brentwood, California, home with his wife, the producer and photographer Michele Singer Reiner, late Sunday, both with multiple stab wounds.<\/p>\n

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Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner attend a Human Rights Campaign’s dinner on March 22, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Matt Winkelmeyer\/ Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The deaths of Rob, 78, and Michele, 70, whose work brought lighthearted comedies and weighty dramas with some Jewish sensibilities to the mainstream, has shocked Hollywood.<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s 32-year-old son Nick has been arrested in connection to the homicide investigation. The Reiners were reportedly found by their daughter Romy. A $4 million bail was originally set, but was later rescinded. Nick Reiner remains behind bars in a Los Angeles jail while authorities prepare their case against him.<\/p>\n

Rob and Nick Reiner had partnered a decade ago to make the autobiographical drama \u201cBeing Charlie,\u201d inspired by Nick\u2019s longtime struggles with drug addiction. Nick co-scripted the film, which follows the troubled son of a famous actor in and out of rehab as his dad prepares a run for governor.<\/p>\n

Rob Reiner himself was a vocal Democratic Party activist and flirted with running for public office; though he never did, he was a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Following news of the Reiners\u2019 death, Trump responded by insulting them on his social network Truth Social, saying that Reiner had died \u201creportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.\u201d  The president added, \u201cHe was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner\u2019s profile as a Hollywood liberal was in part stoked by his most formative role, as a star of the sitcom \u201cAll in the Family\u201d as a young liberal foil to Archie Bunker.<\/p>\n

After leaving the show, Reiner struck out on his own as a director and screenwriter. His vast filmography encompasses some of the most generation-defining movies of the 1980s and 1990s, including \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026,\u201d \u201cThis is Spinal Tap,\u201d \u201cThe Princess Bride,\u201d \u201cMisery,\u201d \u201cThe Sure Thing,\u201d \u201cStand By Me\u201d and \u201cA Few Good Men.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rob Reiner attends the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at the Beacon Theatre on April 27, 2019 in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil\/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The son of Carl Reiner, a legendary Jewish comedian and director in his own right, and actor and singer Estelle Reiner, Rob Reiner grew up on the sets of TV comedies like \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show.\u201d Rob had a bar mitzvah, but the family was not observantly Jewish, with Carl declaring had become an atheist after the Holocaust. Rob himself would also identify as an atheist throughout his life.<\/p>\n

His big break came when he was cast as Michael \u201cMeathead\u201d Stivic, the left-wing Polish-American son-in-law of Irish-American bigot Archie Bunker, on \u201cAll in the Family\u201d in 1971. While the character was not Jewish, under the guidance of the show\u2019s button-pushing Jewish creator Norman Lear, Reiner still embodied the emerging spirit of American Jewish liberalism in his endless sparring matches with Carroll O\u2019Connor\u2019s Bunker.<\/p>\n

The two fought about politics and the country\u2019s changing social mores, helping to turn \u201cAll in the Family\u201d into a massive hit. Reiner\u2019s character regularly appeared in eight of the show\u2019s nine seasons.<\/p>\n

Reiner left the show in 1978, striking out as a writer and director of films while continuing to appear in front of the camera. Some, like the mostly improvised rock-band mockumentary \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap\u201d and family fantasy comedy \u201cThe Princess Bride,\u201d were not immediate hits but became widely beloved cult classics over time, spawning some of the most-quoted lines in cinema history. \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d his 1993 military drama starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, was nominated for best picture at the Oscars.<\/p>\n

Of particular note was \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026,\u201d Reiner\u2019s 1989 romantic comedy (scripted by equally beloved Jewish writer Nora Ephron) starring Jewish actor Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as lifelong friends navigating a mutual attraction. Rob met Michele, a photographer and his future second wife, on the set when she happened to be walking past. Their mutual attraction inspired him to change the movie\u2019s ending, allowing Crystal and Ryan\u2019s characters to get together; Michele would later work with Rob, producing some of his films.<\/p>\n

Rob also cast his mother, Estelle, to deliver the famous line \u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having,\u201d in a scene that took place in New York\u2019s Jewish culinary landmark Katz\u2019s Deli. The catchphrase, spoken after Ryan\u2019s character faked an orgasm nearby, helped make the deli a major tourist draw.<\/p>\n

The moment was one of the most overtly Jewish of Reiner\u2019s directorial work \u2014 though even when the director was working in a more mainstream register, Jewish humor still informed his approach. Crystal, a frequent collaborator, also brought Borscht Belt stylings to \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d and reportedly was among the first people to visit the Reiners\u2019 home after news of their deaths emerged. Jewish actor Harry Shearer, who co-starred in \u201cSpinal Tap,\u201d said in a statement that Reiner \u201cwas a mensch.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also channeled the Yiddish of his childhood when paying tribute to Lear following his death at 101 during the Emmys in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a Yiddish word that describes Norman\u2019s genius: It\u2019s kochleffel,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cFor all you non-Jews out there, kochleffel is a ladle, a ladle that stirs the pot. And when Norman the kochleffel stirred that pot, he wound up changing American culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michele\u2019s family also has pronounced Jewish roots. She is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the sister of Rabbi Suzanne Singer, a prominent Reform rabbi who spent 15 years at Temple Beth El in Riverside, California, before retiring in 2023. A former documentary producer, Rabbi Singer has also held several leadership roles within the Union for Reform Judaism, and had worked with progressive Jewish groups like T\u2019ruah. She is a part-time rabbi at Temple Sinai in Palm Springs.<\/p>\n

Among Rob Reiner\u2019s final films were a documentary about his Jewish comedian friend Albert Brooks and another documentary about the rise of Christian nationalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy aunt was in Auschwitz, she survived. My wife\u2019s mother survived Auschwitz but her entire family was killed at Auschwitz, and I visited recently there,\u201d Reiner told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the film. \u201cI\u2019m very well aware of what can happen when an autocrat takes over a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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