Writer-director Rob Reiner in New York in 2016. He was found dead with his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, in their Los Angeles home on Sunday.Brian Ach/The Associated Press
In an interview this fall with Rob Reiner, I asked him: If All in the Family’s Archie Bunker were alive today, would the fictional hard-right character support MAGA?
“He certainly was a conservative,” Reiner said. “And definitely a racist. There are a lot of elected Republicans who are kowtowing to MAGA because they have to. It’s where the power base is. But I would say there are a lot of mainstream Republicans who reject MAGA because it’s essentially an authoritarian regime. This is a weird time in our country, a very weird time.”
Those of us of a certain age remember the 1970s as a weird time as well. But in that divisive decade, the All in the Family living room was America’s living room − the Bunkers’ chairs and couch were part of my own family’s furniture. When Archie stared into his television screen, we stared right back at him through ours.
Reiner, an actor and a director/producer of a string of films that are beloved classics, including When Harry Met Sally… and Stand By Me, was found dead with his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, the apparent victims of a homicide. Their son Nick Reiner is now in police custody.
Reiner was a fixture on television for the better part of the 1970s on All in the Family, Norman Lear’s groundbreaking comedy series. He was Michael (Meathead) Stivic, the perpetually outraged, always-hungry Polish-American son-in-law whose bleeding heart on his sleeve was as clear as the mustache on his face.
Reiner talks on the phone at his office at Castle Rock Enterprises, seeking donations for anti-smoking campaigns in 1998 in Beverly Hills, Calif.Reed Saxon/The Associated Press
Reiner in real life was also a liberal activist. His blazing onscreen arguments with the bigoted, blue-collar, raspberry-blowing conservative played by Carroll O’Connor stood in for the partisan, intergenerational conversations of the times.
Yet the landmark role in a landmark series now stands as mere footnote in a distinguished career as a film director that began with an audacious run of success from 1984 to 1992. The first movie in Reiner’s winning streak, the rock ‘n’ roll mockumentary This is Spinal Tap‚ gave no indication of his future mainstream touch and versatility.
It was a miracle the film even got made, let alone became a cult classic. As the son of the late, legendary comedy writer, actor and director Carl Reiner, and a television star in his own right, Reiner had little trouble getting meetings with Hollywood heavyweights. But schlepping his Spinal Tap demo reel from studio to studio was one thing – having the project taken seriously was another.
“As a Jew, you always hope for the best but expect the worst,” he wrote in this year’s A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap. “My heritage didn’t disappoint.”
Reiner arrives at the premiere of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues on Sept. 9 at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles.Richard Shotwell/The Canadian Press
Starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as members of a fictional British heavy-metal group, This is Spinal Tap satirized the music industry and lampooned the self-serious rock docs of the era. Reiner played Marty DiBergi, a documentary filmmaker capturing the band’s American tour.
The film flopped upon its release, but slow-burned its way into pop-culture lore. The Library of Congress put it in the National Film Registry and the catchphrase “up to eleven” landed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
“People didn’t know what I was doing,” Reiner told me this fall, upon the release of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. “But over the years, it caught on.”
As did Reiner, in all directions with box-office bang and a filmmaker’s sensibility that was light or heavy as required. Critics and the popcorn crowd typically adored his work.
In short order his output included the following hits:
- The Sure Thing (1985) was a Christmas rom-com road film starring John Cusack – and a 180-degree follow-up to Spinal Tap.
- Stand by Me (1986) waxed nostalgic in a slightly creepy coming-of-age drama based on a Stephen King novella.
- The Princess Bride (1987) was a fantasy comedy in which wrestler André the Giant’s acting potential was finally realized.
- When Harry Met Sally… (1989) gave rise to another catchphrase – “I’ll have what she’s having.”
- The psychological-horror thriller Misery (1990) was another Stephen King adaptation, but to much scarier effect.
- Military courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992) spawned a third catchphrase, the Jack Nicholson-uttered, “You can’t handle the truth.”
Though Reiner’s acting career took a back seat, he excelled in small roles. Surely his presence in The Wolf of Wall Street was worth some sort of an award.
His later films (and social-media activities) reflected his leftist politics, including 2016’s LBJ, 2017’s Shock and Awe and the 2024 documentary God & Country, a primer on what he saw as Christian nationalism’s threat to democracy.
Reiner’s public opposition to the presidencies of Donald Trump was so vehement that many online tributes to him after his death were prefaced with disclaimers from conservatives who liked his films but said they could not stomach his politics.
Reiner’s counterculture Michael Stivic character spoke truth to power. Some of his films did the same. Some people couldn’t handle it.