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celebrity.land<\/p>\n
By Sandra Gonzalez, TuAnh Dam, Danya Gainor, celebrity.land<\/p>\n
(celebrity.land) \u2014 <\/b>Robert Reiner, the celebrated actor, director and producer, was found dead with his wife Michele at their home in Los Angeles on Sunday, a spokesperson for the Reiner family said. He was 78.<\/p>\n
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department were investigating an apparent homicide<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re going to try to speak to every family member that we can to get to the facts of this investigation,\u201d LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said. Investigators were interviewing a family member Sunday evening regarding the deaths, a law enforcement source told celebrity.land.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was brilliant and kind, a man who made films of every genre to challenge himself as an artist,\u201d Kathy Bates said in a statement through a representative.<\/p>\n Reiner came to stardom playing the son-in-law of Archie and Edith Bunker on the 1970s hit show \u201cAll in the Family\u201d before going on to create a truly diverse body of incredibly successful work, including classics like \u201cThis is Spinal Tap,\u201d \u201cStand By Me,\u201d and \u201cThe Princess Bride.\u201d He cemented his status as a leading director with \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026\u201d, \u201cMisery,\u201d and \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d which earned four Oscar nominations.<\/p>\n Reiner was born in 1947 in The Bronx, New York, to Estelle and Carl Reiner, the writer, actor, director and producer whose many decades\u2019 worth of credits included \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe 2000 Year Old Man.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiner said he found it a challenge to step out of his father\u2019s shadow.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t feel the pressure from my father, I felt the pressure internally because my father had achieved at such a high level that I thought, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever be able to break through,\u2019\u201d he told The Atlantic in 2017.<\/p>\n He did. Reiner earned two Emmy Awards for his role on \u201cAll in the Family\u201d playing Mike Stivic, who would get into arguments with his conservative father-in-law on the groundbreaking show, which often explored political and social issues through comedy.<\/p>\n Though Reiner continued to act \u2013 he had a part on season 4 of FX\u2019s \u201cThe Bear\u201d earlier this year \u2013 he moved behind the camera in the 1980s, making his directorial debut with \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap,\u201d the musical comedy that more or less invented the mockumentary. \u201cIt pioneered a new narrative format,\u201d Reiner wrote in a history of the movie<\/a> published earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cSpinal Tap\u201d also did something more important, he noted: it \u201ctransformed the way people talk and think about the music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n After years of development, a sequel to the film \u2013 \u201cSpinal Tap II: The End Continues\u201d \u2013 was released in September, 2025.<\/p>\n Reiner exhibited extraordinary range. He followed his first film with an adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s coming-of-age story \u201cStand by Me\u201d and then directed cult comedy \u201cThe Princess Bride.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it came time for the movie\u2019s release, no one had any idea of how to sell it,\u201d Reiner wrote, in the introduction to the Cary Elwes and Joe Layden book about the making of \u201cThe Princess Bride.\u201d What even was it \u2013 \u201ca fairy tale? Was it a swashbuckling adventure? Was it a love story? Or was it just a nutty satire? The fact is it was, and is, all of the above. Not easy to capture in a two-minute preview trailer or a thirty-second TV ad.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite those studio misgivings and an early weak theater audience, the movie became wildly famous as a beloved movie that defied all these forms.<\/p>\n Two years later, he entered into film history a beloved romantic comedy that still stands as a masterclass in chemistry and capturing the culture, \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe screenplay has my name on it, but it was very much a collaboration,\u201d Nora Ephron wrote in an introduction to a book version of that film\u2019s script. \u201cRob\u201d \u2013 who was a very divorced man at the time \u2013 \u201csaid he had an idea \u2013 he wanted to make a movie about a man and a woman who become friends, as opposed to lovers; they make a deliberate decision not to have sex because sex ruins everything; and then they have sex and it ruins everything.\u201d<\/p>\n In the process of taking that story to life, they became friends themselves. \u201cRob is a very strange person,\u201d Ephron wrote. \u201cHe is extremely funny, but he is also extremely depressed \u2013 or at least he was at the time; he talked constantly about how depressed he was.\u201d He put that darkness and that light into the script itself, and so did Ephron: \u201cI began with a Harry, based on Rob.\u201d Nearly four years from their first meeting, during which Reiner made \u201cThe Princess Bride,\u201d they began to shoot a film.<\/p>\n The magic of \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026\u201d came, Ephron said, from the fact that she owned Sally and Reiner owned Harry. As they wrote and made the film, they exchanged information about the current state of single men and women with each other. Ephron told Reiner, for one thing, that women faked orgasms, a story that delighted Reiner so much that he wrote one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history about it.<\/p>\n\u2018This Is Spinal Tap\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018The Princess Bride\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018When Harry Met Sally\u2026\u2019<\/h2>\n