Last Sunday night, the great film director Rob Reiner and his wife were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. The main suspect is their son. The horror of it all appears incomprehensible. And yet it’s not.
Hollywood has always attracted darkness. A world that can create dreams on a screen and manipulate viewer emotions — joy, fear, lust, awe, mirth, melancholy — while giving the dreamweavers incomparable power over the dreamseekers is a magnet for the unbalanced, like a Charles Manson or a Phil Spector. Throw in vast wealth and popularity, and you can add one major disadvantage — a naivete about true evil that they can’t manipulate
Reiner was born and raised in Hollywood success, unlike his father. Carl Reiner had become an industry legend — co-writer with Mel Brooks on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, director of four hit movies starring Steve Martin (The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, and the hysterical All of Me). But like most men of the Greatest Generation, he served in the military during World War II and learned his craft entertaining fellow soldiers.
Rob Reiner had it easier. His huge show-business break came early, at age 23, when cast by his dad’s close friend, Norman Lear, in the landmark sitcom, All in the Family. The role of Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic, made him rich and famous for the show’s nine-year run (1971-1979).
He could have retired right after or kept acting, either way enjoying the pleasures and temptations of Hollywood. Others would have. But this is when Rob proved his worth. His dad was still working, directing Steve Martin crowd pleasers. Rob decided to follow in Carl’s footsteps, only bringing his own new generational talent and ideas as a filmmaker.
The first result was the hilarious, innovative “rockumentary” This is Spinal Tap. Though not a theatrical hit, it caught a wave on 80s home video, tapping into the MTV zeitgeist. Reiner followed it with a sweet teen romantic comedy, The Sure Thing, which turned a small profit on a low budget and made the unknown John Cusack a star. The film launched Reiner’s almost unprecedented streak of artistic and commercial triumphs: Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, The American President. And then it ended.
The Hollywood progressive (pre-woke) mind virus infected Reiner, at its usual cost — the loss of creativity and perspective.
The Hollywood progressive (pre-woke) mind virus infected Reiner, at its usual cost — the loss of creativity and perspective. Like most of his Hollywood peers, he began to think his opinion was more influential than his entertainment. He became a radical left activist, co-founding the American Foundation for Equal Rights (gay marriage), and supporting anti-smoking, environmental, and early childhood education measures. Twenty years after the end of All in the Family, Reiner became “Meathead” in real life.
And his movie output suffered for it. Projects were now message pictures, not audience-friendly films. There were no more funny, memorable scenes like Meg Ryan faking an orgasm at a restaurant with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, or lines like, “You keep using that word [“Inconceivable!”]. I do not think that word means what you think it does,” (Mandy Patinkin reacting to Wallace Shawn as Cary Elwes kept turning up after them) in The Princess Bride.
Reiner was through with such frivolity. He had an agenda to push and silly people to educate. Out came Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), the fight by Medgar Evers’ widow (Whoopi Goldberg) to bring a white supremacist to justice, The Story of Us (1999), scenes from a dissolving marriage (Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer), Alex and Emma (2003), something about a novelist (Luke Wilson) with writer’s block, and Shock and Awe (2017), Bush lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to attack Iraq. Yes, the man who made The Princess Bride made an anti-Iraq War film in 2017. Of course, they all flopped.
Like too many offspring of Hollywood big shots, he had no purpose, no meaning, no God.
Something was off with Reiner at the turn of the century. It wasn’t just his audience he was failing. It was also his son. Nick Reiner started using drugs around 2008 at age 15. Like too many offspring of Hollywood big shots, he had no purpose, no meaning, no God. He turned heroin addict then homeless, then an overdose victim — each a heartbreak for Rob and his wife, Michele. They had the resources to keep saving his life, though not the solution to save him.
But as Rob’s son, Nick did have an opportunity that the overwhelming majority of Tinseltown hopefuls lacked. He could call himself a screenwriter and get the screen credit to validate it. In 2015, Rob directed a film Nick co-wrote, Being Charlie, a semi-fictionalized depiction of his struggle with drug addiction. The movie didn’t just bomb, it melted down, earning barely $33,000 on its $3-million budget.
Rob Reiner was at a crossroads in 2016, his career and personal life in freefall. He needed something major to fixate on. And in November of that year, he got it. The Devil Incarnate, Donald Trump, became President of the United States. And Reiner’s woke mind virus mutated into TDS. His Trump attacks flew for 10 years, from “He’s a moron,” (Variety, 2016) through “The hush money check he signed to Stormy Daniels is a slam dunk. Time for this crook to go to prison,” (X, 2023) to “America has fallen,” (BlueSky, November 2024).
And yet, Reiner’s former grace and perception came through in one of his last interviews (Piers Morgan Uncensored, September 2025), expressing his reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. “Absolute horror,” Reiner said. “And I, unfortunately, saw the video of it, and it’s beyond belief, what happened to him, and that should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. That’s not acceptable.”
What happened to Reiner should never happen to anybody. His politics died with him. But his movies will entertain us forever. And I’ll pray for the souls of him and his wife. Maybe even his son’s.
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