I never thought, when I first spotted this quote, that I would be using it so soon on this blog. It’s a tribute to Rob Reiner that he had such an ability to laugh at himself—and to help others do the same in the often insane world in which we live.
I’m not going to talk—at least not right now—about the President’s graceless social media post about the tragic murder of Reiner and his wife Michele at the hands of their son Nick, following their unrelenting but unsuccessful efforts to save him from drug addiction and depression. I’d rather discuss what Reiner’s TV and film work meant to me.
As a tween, I came to know Reiner through his role as Mike Stivic, the liberal "Meathead" foil to bigoted father-in-law Archie Bunker on Norman Lear’s taboo-breaking Seventies TV satire All in the Family.
Nowadays, some on the right might tag him as a “nepo baby” as the son of The Dick Van Dyke creator Carl Reiner. What I did know was that he was brilliant, richly deserving of the Best Supporting Actor Emmy he won before departing the show.
I have so many favorite episodes involving him (and, indeed, as far as I’m concerned, it never recovered after he and Sally Struthers left), but I urge you to view two in particular: “Gloria Poses in the Nude” (Season 4), when Reiner uses a twitch in the eye to signal his jealousy of his being painted by a friend of his, and “Gloria Suspects Mike” (Season 6), in which Mike nervously tries to fend off an attractive economics student (played by Bernadette Peters) who is coming on to him.
Even while appearing in All in the Family, Reiner was looking to write and direct. He did so on several episodes in the show’s first few seasons, and helped conceive the short-lived summer replacement comedy The Super, starring Richard Castellano.
A decade later, he had become a force in film, pushing from strength to strength with The Sure Thing, This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Misery, and A Few Good Men.
Dustin Hoffman joked that every actor has at least one Ishtar on his resume. The same applies to directors. I’m afraid that I was peripherally involved in what may well have been Reiner’s.
In the early 1990s, while working in research at a nonprofit trade association, I was contacted by a staffer at Rob Reiner’s production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, for the names of some area enclosed malls that could be used for a scene in his next film, North. I provided a few names, and couldn’t wait to see the results.
In 1994, North finally appeared. It not only underperformed at the box office, but in the years since, it’s been listed among the worst movies ever made. Well, every decent film director is entitled to at least one misfire, I guess.
From what I can tell, however, no movie in Reiner’s considerable filmography as a director, producer, and writer was in bad taste. Quite simply, he respected the intelligence of audiences, like his father and Lear.
Rob Reiner grew up and flourished in a better time than the current moment. His life and work deserve celebration, not trolling by a barbarian and his all-too-easily-influenced horde.
Nearly 40 years after working with Reiner on Stand by Me, one of its child actors, Will Wheaton, now established in the industry, told CNN, upon hearing the news of the director’s death:
“The world knows Rob as a generational talent, a storyteller and humanitarian activist who made a difference with his art, his voice, and his influence. I knew that man, but I also knew a man who treated me with more kindness, care, and love than my own father ever did. And it is the loss of that man that is piercing my heart right now.”
(The image accompanying
this post, of Rob Reiner at the German premiere of The Bucket List, was
taken in Berlin on Jan. 21, 2008, by Franz Richter)
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