Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk.
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From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Tuesday, prosecutors investigating the death of Rob and Michelle Reiner said they planned to charge the couple's son, Nick, with first-degree murder. Today. Today. Julia Jacobs on what we're learning about the death of a Hollywood legend.
And Wesley Morris on why so many of Reiner's films are among the most beloved movies ever made. It's Wednesday, December 17th. Julia, I appreciate you coming in today.
Thanks for having me.
I just want to say at the outset, perhaps this is obvious, but the death of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, is a very gruesome and tragic situation. And we do not want to linger on it for a long time in this conversation. In fact, I hope we don't have to linger on it much at all. But I do think... we should briefly talk about what we know at this point about what actually happened.
You're right. It's an absolute tragedy, and there are a lot of questions right now. But what we do know is that on Sunday, the authorities were called to Rob Reiner's home in Brentwood, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. And the first information that came out was that there were two people deceased individuals inside. And they listed the ages, but not initially the identities.
But the ages matched up roughly with those of Rob Reiner, the Hollywood director, and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, who is a photographer and a producer. And later that night, on Sunday night, their son, Nick, was arrested. And eventually, police said they were investigating his role in their deaths.
Right, which was a shocking piece of information.
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Chapter 2: What happened in the tragic death of Rob and Michele Reiner?
They spent a lot of time together. And in fact, on Saturday night, some of my colleagues were told that Rob Reiner and Nick Reiner were at the house of Conan O'Brien for a Christmas party.
The night before.
The night before. And that, you know, one person told my colleague that... Rob Reiner said something about his son's behavior, something to the effect of, you can't act this way. And this was the night before Rob and his wife Michelle were found stabbed to death, allegedly by Nick.
And what we all had to reckon with thereafter was that this huge force in Hollywood, this enormously successful and influential director and producer, who himself had quite famously escaped the shadow of his own father, had allegedly, as you said, been killed by his own son. And I wonder if you can tell us that story of Reiner and how he became what he became.
So after the news of Rob Reiner's tragic death, everyone automatically started reliving his career. And something that he talked about a lot is his father, Carl Reiner. He was a giant of 20th century television. He helped define the medium of television comedy.
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Chapter 3: Who is Julia Jacobs and what insights does she provide?
He was a performer, a writer, director. He created The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of the most celebrated comedies of all time. He won nine Emmys and directed many movies. He worked as a close collaborator with Steve Martin. And throughout Rob's long career in Hollywood, he could actually be quite candid about how overwhelming it could be to live in the shadow of his father.
How did he talk about it?
He talked about feeling misunderstood as a child once he was quoted as saying it was frightening to be compared to him. And he tells this story about how a friend of his father, Norman Lear, another giant of television, pointed out to Carl Reiner that, you know, his son Rob was quite funny, but Carl Reiner was surprised. He's like, my son, funny. I think he's quite quiet and sullen.
And in Rob's later years, he would tell that story a lot as an example of how he just felt like his father didn't get him.
Didn't know him.
Right. But he wanted to be like his father, just like his father. And he didn't shy away from that either. He told another story that when his father at one point encouraged him to differentiate himself, he suggested, you know, what other name would you want to take on? What would you want to change your name to? And Rob said, what if I changed it to Carl? Wow.
He embraced this desire to be like his father. He was a teenager on the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show, learning everything he could about entertainment. And, you know, eventually he got into theater. He struck out on his own. And his first major television role, he was cast by Norman Lear, his father's friend. And this was for the sitcom... From Television City in Hollywood. All in the Family.
Boy, the way Glenn Miller played...
It was a defining television show of the 1970s for the way it put generational conflict on display. This was a time when members of the silent generation, like the show's patriarch, Archie Bunker, were really grappling with the youth counterculture that stemmed from the 1960s and the anti-war movement. And Rob Reiner's character was this guy named Michael Stivick.
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Chapter 4: What details emerged about Nick Reiner's background?
Take it down the road and dump it.
And a lot of the show's comedy came from this back and forth between Archie Bunker, the conservative father-in-law to Mike Stivick, who he calls... You are a meathead.
Meathead, right.
A meathead, dead from the neck up.
Meathead.
And even though they weren't, you know, father and son by blood, this was a show with a strong undercurrent of this familial narrative. And the two would fight over politics, over Michael's lack of a job that Archie would deem respectable.
That's all you care about, Archie, is what you got and how you can keep it. Oh, well, you'd care about it too, sonny boy, if you had anything. It wasn't living on for me without a pot to peel a potato in.
And yet there's also this deep undercurrent of love between them.
Right, there are moments of real connection. And the scene that comes to mind immediately is one where they're stuck together in a storage room full of alcohol. And, you know, both of them are drunk and talking about their fathers.
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Chapter 5: How did Rob Reiner's upbringing influence his career?
We didn't do it to be cathartic, but it turned out that that's what happened.
Rob said it made him understand his son a lot more and that he hoped it made him a better father.
and that brought us closer together. And Nick said... We didn't bond a lot as a kid.
Like, he really liked baseball. I liked basketball, and he could watch that with my brother, baseball.
Even though he and his father didn't bond a lot as a kid, it better helped him understand his dad.
It made me feel closer to him.
And in those interviews, it's clear that Nick and his parents had worked very hard to keep him sober. But Nick also talked later about relapsing after the movie came out.
After this healing exercise of making a movie with his dad.
Right. There was a podcast where he talks about having a heart attack on a plane from cocaine use and ending up in the hospital. And there's another time he talks about being on cocaine and completely wrecking his parents' guest house, which he lived in, where he punches the television, punches a lamp, you know, and the whole place ends up in shambles.
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