Director Martin Scorsese praised the late Reiners in an essay published in the New York Times, writing, “Rob Reiner was a friend of mine, and so was Michelle. From now on, I will have to use the past tense, and it fills me with great sadness. But I have no other choice.”
The Reiners, ages 78 and 70, were found dead of stab wounds in their Brentwood home on Dec. 14. Their 32-year-old son Nick Reiner was arrested and charged with two counts of murder.
Scorsese first met Rob Reiner shortly after moving to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, when they began attending a gathering of comedians and actors hosted by George Memmoli.
“Rob and I were both, in a sense, transplants from the East,” Scorsese wrote. Reiner comes from show business royalty, her parents being performers Karl Reiner and Estelle Reiner. “This is 100 percent New York humor, and it was in the air I breathed.”
“I immediately loved spending time with Rob. We had a natural affinity for each other. He was hilarious and sometimes wryly funny, but he was never one to take over the room,” Scorsese wrote. “He had a beautiful sense of freedom, lived life in the moment, and had a good laugh. When Michael McKean honored him at Lincoln Center, he did a little thing that was a great parody of the solemn official memorial speech. Before he got into the punch line, Rob laughed so hard that it could be heard throughout the auditorium.”
Scorsese’s favorite film directed by Reiner was Misery, which he said was “a very special film, beautifully acted by Kathy Bates and James Caan.” And he wrote that “This Is Spinal Tap” is “another…perfect piece of work.” When Scorsese was casting for his 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, he “immediately thought of Rob” for the role of Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“He was a great improviser, a master of comedy, worked brilliantly with Leo and the others, and understood the human predicament of his characters. This man loved his son, was happy with his success, but knew he was doomed to fall,” Scorsese wrote of Reiner. “There’s a great moment where Rob watches Jon Favreau explain to Leo that he can walk away relatively unscathed before the SEC charges him with violations. The look on Rob’s face as he realizes Leo’s hesitation and ultimately won’t quit is so eloquent. ‘You’ve got all the money in the world,’ he says. ‘You need everyone else’s money.’ Money? A loving father confused by his son.”
Director Scorsese added, “I was moved by the delicacy and frankness of Rob’s acting during filming, and moved again as I edited the scenes together, and moved when I saw the finished picture. My heart breaks now just thinking about the tenderness of Rob’s acting in this and other scenes.”
“What happened to Rob and Michelle is obscene and an abyss of lived reality. The only thing that helps me come to terms with it is the passage of time. So, like their loved ones and their friends, and they were people who had a lot of friends, I also imagine they’re alive and well. I have to be allowed to…and someday I’ll go to a dinner or a party and find myself sitting next to Rob, hear him laugh, see him.”I’ll look at his beautiful face, laugh at his stories, enjoy his natural comic timing, and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend.” ”
