Letter from the Editor #10
Save the date, March 4th, for the next Oldster Variety Hour; The sweet Rob Reiner stories that touched me this week.
Readers,
I’m excited to reveal that the next Oldster Variety Hour will be at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan on Wednesday, March 4th, at 7pm. I’m working out the details, but what I know so far is that it will feature two performers I love, Ophira Eisenberg and Mike Albo, plus others. Mark your calendars, and stay tuned for more.
The first one was a smash. I hope to see many of you at the next one.
The sweet Rob Reiner stories that touched me this week…
By the time I learned Sunday night that Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were stabbed to death, most likely by their troubled son, Nick, I was already feeling gutted by so much other horrific news from the weekend: the mass shooting at Brown University; the deadly attack on a Chanukah celebration in Australia; the U.S. soldiers and a translator slain by ISIS in Syria.
Reading about one of our most beloved and mensch-iest actor/directors meeting such a tragic, violent end put me over the edge. Maybe you’ve felt the same way.
Of course, I didn’t know Reiner personally, but like so many others, in a way, I felt as if I did. For my entire life, I’ve been aware of him and affected by his work.
My holiday gift to you: Now through New Year’s Eve, save 20% off paid annual subscriptions. Paid subscriptions keep Oldster going, and allow me to pay essayists and interviewers.
Reiner first entered my consciousness as Michael “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family, and later as the director of so many movies I loved—the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, in which he also deadpans as documentarian Marty DeBergi; Stand by Me; When Harry Met Sally; A Few Good Men (check out my cousin Seth Masket’s related piece, “Rob Reiner reminded us that lawless authoritarians are bad,”); Misery; and The Princess Bride, to name a few.
In recent years he also appeared in small roles and cameos on TV shows I love, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Bear, where in Season 4 he plays sandwich-maker Ebraheim’s business advisor, Albert Schnurr.
This week I’ve read a number of moving pieces about Reiner’s immeasurable influence, what a pleasure he was to work with, Nick Reiner’s lifelong struggles with addiction and mental illness, and his parents’ tireless efforts to help him. I wasn’t sure I had anything useful or revelatory to add to the conversation. Then I read Anthony Breznican’s uplifting Esquire essay, “We Could Use a Comforting Story About Rob Reiner Right Now.” Something particular in it touched me, and I felt like sharing.
At the beginning of the piece, Breznican references a quote he got from Reiner when he interviewed him in 2003:
“When people say, ‘What is the film The Princess Bride about?’ I say, ‘It’s about how a sick boy, who doesn’t want to see his grandfather, is brought closer to his grandfather over the sharing of a book.”
How beautiful is that? That kind of intergenerational bonding. I’m so moved by it.
Yesterday I came across something heartwarming related to this: In 2020, three days before his father, comedy legend Carl Reiner’s death at 98, Carl and Rob reenacted The Princess Bride’s final scene together. You can watch it here:
And how poignant is all of this, in light of the difficulty between Reiner and his son, who yesterday was charged with two counts of first-degree murder?
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with 1987’s The Princess Bride, it features Peter Falk playing “The Grandfather” to Fred Savage’s “The Grandson,” who is home sick from school. After Savage’s character tries to avoid his grandfather’s visit, Falk’s character wins him over with a reading of William Goldman’s interpretation of S. Morgenstern’s tale, The Princess Bride.
The movie has an incredible cast—Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Christopher Guest, Chris Sarandon. It’s one of my favorites, and if you haven’t seen it, you must! Even though most of the cast are Boomers, I think of this movie as a key Gen X touchstone.
I think of When Harry Met Sally this way, too. The other sweet story I learned about this week relates to that movie: Reiner changed the ending after he met and fell in love with Michele.
In the original script, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) went their separate ways at the end. But after ten years of being single (in the wake of his first marriage to Penny Marshall), Reiner met Singer while filming, and it changed his perspective, leaving him more hopeful about romantic relationships.
That’s how the beloved New Year’s Eve scene came about. Although apparently Billy Crystal wrote the dialogue for it, including this line that always makes me tear up:
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
Here’s a clip of it:
These stories helped me get through the week. But what a world we’re living in. I like what Anne Lamott wrote in a Note this week about how to get through times like this:
No paywall this week…
This week I’m not putting the bottom part of my Letter from the Editor behind a paywall, as I have in prior installments. I’d been doing that because I know paywalls help to convert free subscribers to paid. All the other Oldster posts are free for everyone to read. Because of this, my paid subscribers are considered to be “volunteer.”
If you enjoy all that I publish here, I’d love your support. It takes a lot of work, and I pay essayists and interviewers. Right now I’m offering 20% off annual paid subscriptions for life. It’s a pretty great deal. Big thanks to those who already support what I’m doing. 🙏
Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading, and subscribing. 🙏💝
I’m sitting in the pre-dawn dark, while reading this. At least, I hope it’s dawn, rather than a really dark night that’s just beginning.
This was a brutal week. Thanks for the Reiner stuff..