Tributes paid to This Is Spinal Tap and Stand By Me director Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner, the director of This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, The Princess Bride and numerous other films, has died aged 78. He was found dead in his home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, along with his wife Michele Singer Reiner. Los Angeles Police Department have opened a homicide investigation.

“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” said a family spokesperson in a statement. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”

Reiner was one of the most revered figures in Hollywood. The son of celebrated comedian, director and writer Carl Reiner, he first came to prominence in ‘70s TV sitcom All In The Family, playing liberal hippie Mike ‘Meathead’ Stivic, adversary to conservative father-in-law Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor. Over its nine-season run, Reiner won two Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor.

He moved into film directing with 1984’s cult mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap – co-created with stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer – which expertly skewered the pretentiousness of the rock business as it followed the fortunes of a hapless heavy metal band touring America. Casting himself as overly earnest director Marty Di Bergi, Reiner appeared in one of its most iconic scenes opposite Guest: “This one goes to eleven.”

Reiner went on to direct a series of critical and commercial cinema landmarks, from coming-of-age drama Stand By Me and rom-com When Harry Met Sally (in which his mother Estelle delivers the famous line at Katz’s Delicatessen: “I’ll have what she’s having”) to psychological horror Misery and 1992’s Oscar-nominated military courtroom drama, A Few Good Men.

He used his high profile to become a progressive voice on the West Coast, targeting Big Tobacco with 1998’s California Children and Families Initiative. A decade later he co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, helping pave the way for same-sex marriage. A lifelong Democrat, he was a fierce opponent of Donald Trump.

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His commercial star waned in later years as he turned his hand to more politically-pointed films, among them LBJ and 2017’s Shock And Awe, a savage takedown of US policy during the Gulf War. “I came into this business to express myself and tell stories, not just churn out a product,” he once told (The Guardian. Reiner’s most recent enterprise was Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, a follow-up to his ‘80s classic that found its protagonists older, but hardly wiser.

Among those paying tribute were actors and collaborators John Cusack, Virginia Madsen, Josh Gad, Paul Walter Hauser and Ben Stiller, who called Reiner “one of my favourite directors. He made some of the most formative movies for my generation.”

Good friend Eric Idle, who first met Reiner in 1975, commented: “A clever, talented and very thoughtful man.” Ex-US President Barack Obama hailed his achievements in film and TV, adding that “beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people – and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action.”

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