Martin Scorsese Remembers Rob Reiner in Touching Essay Tribute
Martin Scorsese is one of the latest Hollywood filmmakers to honor Rob Reiner.
In a new essay published in The New York Times, the Taxi Driver director began his piece by writing: “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.”
Rob and his wife Michele Reiner were found dead in their home on December 14. Their son, Nick Reiner, has since been arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
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Martin and Rob met and got to know each other in 1970s Los Angeles.
“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 had a beautiful sense of uninhibited freedom, fully enjoying the life of the moment, and he had a great barreling laugh,” Martin wrote.
He continued, “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.”
When Martin went on to make The Wolf of Wall Street, he thought of Rob right away to play Leonardo DiCaprio‘s on-screen dad.
“He could improvise with the best, he was a master at comedy, he worked beautifully with Leo and the rest of the guys, and he understood the human predicament of his character: The man loved his son, he was happy with his success, but he knew that he was destined for a fall,” said the director.
Martin also said his favorite movie of Rob‘s was Misery, and praised it as “a very special film, beautifully acted by Kathy Bates and James Caan.”
“So, like all of their loved ones and their friends — and these were people with many, many friends — I have to be allowed to imagine them alive and well … and that one day, I’ll be at a dinner or a party and find myself seated next to Rob, and I’ll hear his laugh and see his beatific face and laugh at his stories and relish his natural comic timing, and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend,” he concluded.