Richard Belzer, the humorist, dramatic actor, and ubiquitous tv presence, died on Sunday in accordance with The Hollywood Reporter. “He had plenty of well being points, and his final phrases have been, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker,’” author Invoice Scheft, a longtime buddy, advised the outlet. The Connecticut-born expertise started his profession in New York Metropolis comedy golf equipment and was a presence within the outer orbit of Saturday Night time Reside within the mid-Nineteen Seventies. In 1993 his profession took an sudden flip towards drama when he performed Detective John Munch on Murder: Life on the Streets. After seven seasons, the character moved from Baltimore to New York Metropolis, and Belzer appeared in the identical position for 15 seasons (with occasional visitor pictures thereafter) on Legislation and Order: Particular Victims Unit. He was 78 years outdated.
His first movie or tv credit score was the low-budget sketch comedy film The Groove Tube, a really a lot of-its-time venture co-starring Chevy Chase and musician Buzzy Linhart. He was additionally a author and performer for The Nationwide Lampoon Radio Hour alongside Chase, Invoice Murray, John Belushi, Michael O’Donoghue, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis. Most would then go on to star in Saturday Night time Reside. Within the early years, Belzer might typically be noticed as a bit participant on that present.
Because the Nineteen Seventies changed into the Nineteen Eighties, Belzer honed his extraordinarily dry model (plenty of “yeah, certain” sighs) and his on-stage look of darkish sun shades. He appeared on The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Present, and Don Kirshner’s ‘Rock Live performance’. In 1983 he appeared because the emcee in Brian De Palma’s Scarface making no scarcity of cocaine jokes. Right here’s an instance of his standup of this time interval, which, once more, is of-its-time and comes with a content material warning.
Within the late Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, Belzer would steadily seem on The Howard Stern Present, notably to riff on the information phase. These sequences would usually go lengthy, annoying the DJs who have been scheduled subsequent. Stern would inevitably play audio of Belzer’s spouse Harlee McBride, from motion pictures like Younger Girl Chatterly II, which Belzer would then defend as “artwork movies.” It was considered one of many recurring bits.
Belzer and McBride have been married for practically 40 years, and spent most of their time lately on a property they owned within the south of France.
Relating to the position of John Munch, Belzer defined that he was not initially up for the half—it being considerably counter-intuitive for a comic book—however Barry Levinson, one of many government producers, heard him on Stern’s radio present and rolled the cube on bringing him to audition. Over 20 years, the John Munch character appeared in additional collection (both for actual or as a parody) than anybody else. Just one man can unite The X-Recordsdata with The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Belzer wrote many books over time, together with novels set within the comedy world and one other as a fact-meets-fiction play about himself working with precise New York detectives. He additionally wrote 4 books diving right into a ardour of his: conspiracy theories. In 2015 he co-wrote Somebody Is Hiding One thing: What Occurred to Malaysia Airways Flight 370? Different matters included the Kennedy assassination, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana.
Information of Belzer’s dying turned public on Sunday afternoon from his pals in comedy. Among the many first to say something have been Laraine Newman, Marc Maron, Richard Lewis, Billy Crystal, and Patton Oswalt.
