LOS ANGELES, Dec 15 (Reuters) – The son of Hollywood actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner has been arrested and charged with the murder of his parents after they were found dead in their home over the weekend, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said on Monday.
Nick Reiner, 32, who had struggled with substance abuse, was “booked for murder” in connection with the killings and is being held on a $4 million bond, McDonnell told reporters. Records showed Reiner was in custody at a Los Angeles County jail.
Police found Rob Reiner, 78, the director of beloved movies like “When Harry Met Sally…” and his wife Michele, 70, dead at their home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Sunday. Police had come to the home in response to a call reporting a death at the house.
Local media reported the couple had been fatally stabbed.
Nick Reiner, 32, spoke openly over the years about his battles with drug abuse and periods of homelessness when he was on the run and refusing to go into rehab. He told People magazine in a 2016 interview that he first went into rehab for drug abuse at age 15, and that he eventually had at least 17 stays in facilities over the years.
Rob and Nick Reiner co-wrote the film “Being Charlie,” based on Nick’s experiences.
“It was the most personal thing I’ve ever been involved in,” Rob Reiner told podcaster Marc Maron in 2016.
Photos from the September 9 Los Angeles premiere of Reiner’s last film, “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” showed the director and his wife standing with their three children. Pictures showed Nick with a shaved head and a beard, the only person not smiling.
FROM ‘MEATHEAD’ TO ‘SPINAL TAP’
Tributes poured in for Rob Reiner, who was active in politics, supporting liberal causes.
“He has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
As an actor, Reiner was best remembered for his role on the 1970s television comedy hit “All in the Family” as Mike “Meathead” Stivic, the son-in-law and liberal foil of the bigoted lead character.
The role garnered Reiner two Emmy awards for outstanding supporting actor.
Reiner went on to a prolific Hollywood career as a director, starting with “This Is Spinal Tap,” a 1984 mockumentary about a fictional hard rock band. The film became a cult classic, known for its mostly improvised script, with Reiner playing the faux documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi.
“That was the trick – to make fun of it and at the same time, honor it,” Reiner told CBS’s “60 Minutes” this year as he promoted his Spinal Tap sequel.
Reiner directed nearly two dozen films in all, including classics such as “Stand by Me,” a 1986 coming-of-age drama about four boys who set out to find the body of a missing youth, and 1989’s “When Harry Met Sally …,” often cited as one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time.
That movie featured the famed line, “I’ll have what she’s having,” delivered by the director’s real-life mother, Estelle Reiner, reacting to a faked orgasm in a restaurant.
Reiner also directed the beloved 1987 fairy-tale adventure “The Princess Bride,” the 1990 psychological thriller “Misery,” and the 1992 military courtroom drama “A Few Good Men.”
CHAMPION OF PROGRESSIVE CAUSES
Michele Reiner was at one time a photographer who captured the image of Donald Trump that appears on the cover of his book “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
Rob Reiner, the son of the late comedy writer and actor Carl Reiner, also made campaign ads for 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and campaigned against a 2008 California effort to ban same-sex marriages.
Prior to Nick Reiner’s arrest, Trump, without evidence, said on social media that their deaths were “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
Reiner was first married to Penny Marshall, who starred in the TV sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” and was also a producer and director. He was an adoptive father to Marshall’s daughter and had three children with Michele.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay, Sandy Hooper, Brad Brooks and Dietrich Knauth; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Bill Berkrot)
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