Two weeks after the tragic loss, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese shared a deeply moving tribute to actor and director Rob Reiner.
“Rob Reiner was my friend, and so was Michele,” Scorsese, 83, wrote in an essay for The New York Times. “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 went on to reflect on their shared New York roots. “Rob and I were both Eastern transplants, in a way,” he wrote. “He and his family had moved to Los Angeles when he was young, but he was born in the Bronx and lived in New Rochelle as a child. Rob came from New York show business royalty. This was 100 percent New York humor, and it was in the air I breathed.”
The Killers of the Flower Moon director spoke warmly about their bond as friends and creative partners. Reiner notably portrayed the father of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street.
“We had a natural affinity for each other,” Scorsese wrote. “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.”
Scorsese ended his tribute with a heartbreaking reflection. “What happened to Rob and Michele is an obscenity, an abyss in lived reality,” he wrote. “The only thing that will help me to accept it is the passing of time. 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.”
Rob and Michele Reiner were discovered dead in their home on Dec. 14 from “multiple sharp force injuries,” according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. Their son, Nick Reiner, was later arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. His bail was set at $4 million.
Nick Reiner is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 7.
