Actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele
Credit: Reuters File Photo
Los Angeles: Actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, have died, and police are investigating what they described as an apparent homicide at Rob Reiner’s home.
Their deaths were confirmed in a statement from the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.
Reiner was the son of a pioneering television comedian who became a popular sitcom actor himself before directing a slate of beloved films including This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally … and The Princess Bride.
Reiner initially rose to fame playing Meathead, Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, on the sitcom All in the Family in the 1970s. He then went on to become a remarkably versatile director and a force in California and national Democratic politics.
“This is a devastating loss for our city and our country,” Bass said in a statement Sunday. She said an investigation into the deaths was ongoing.
Reiner’s family also confirmed the deaths of the couple in a statement to Variety.
Capt Mike Bland of the Los Angeles Police Department said officers responded to a death investigation on the 200 block of South Chadbourne Avenue around 3:40 pm Sunday.
Once inside the residence, officers discovered the bodies of two people. Police would not identify the two Sunday night. But they said the residence, in the Brentwood neighborhood of west Los Angeles, had been identified as the home of Rob Reiner. And they said police officials were conducting an investigation into what they described as “an apparent homicide.”
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department, Margaret Stewart, said the department determined that the bodies were of an approximately 78-year-old male and a 68-year-old female.
Public records show Reiner as 78 years old, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, as 70.
Late Sunday night, Brentwood was quiet and the streets were empty except for the cluster of police cars and news vans at the end of the 200 block of South Chadbourne. The area is filled with expansive and expensive homes featuring imposing gates and tall hedges.
Authorities had both ends of the block cordoned off with yellow police tape.
The occasional sound of a passing car and the tinkle of a water fountain in a yard near Reiner’s house punctuated the quiet as helicopters roved overhead.