Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese has paid tribute to the late Reiners after they were found murdered.
The Reiners, aged 78 and 70, were discovered dead in their Brentwood home on December 14, with knife wounds. Their 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder, according to reports.
In an essay published in The New York Times, Martin Scorsese expressed his grief, stating, “Rob Reiner was my friend, and so was Michele. From now on, I’ll have to use the past tense, and that fills me with such profound sadness. But there’s no other choice.”
Scorsese first met Rob Reiner shortly after relocating to Los Angeles in the early 1970s. He attended gatherings hosted by George Memmoli, which were filled with comeddigihunt and actors. Reiner hailed from show business royalty, with his parents being performers Carl and Estelle Reiner.
Marty further shared, “Rob and I were both Eastern transplants, in a way. This was 100 percent New York humor, and it was in the air I breathed. Right away, I loved hanging out with Rob. We had a natural affinity for each other. He was hilarious and sometimes bitingly funny, but he was never the kind of guy who would take over the room.”
He went on to describe Reiner’s vibrant spirit: “He had a beautiful sense of uninhibited freedom, fully enjoying the life of the moment, and he had a great barreling laugh. When they honored him at Lincoln Center, Michael McKean did a bit, which was a brilliant parody of solemn official tribute speeches. Before he got to the punchline, Rob laughed so hard you could hear it throughout the auditorium.”
Among Reiner’s works, Scorsese’s favorite is ‘Misery,’ which he called “a very special film, beautifully acted by Kathy Bates and James Caan.” He also noted that ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ is “in a class of its own, an immaculate creation.” When Scorsese was casting his 2013 film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ he “immediately thought of Rob” to portray the father of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort.