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Rob Reiner

Rob ReinerBorn: 6-Mar-1947
Birthplace: Bronx, NY

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Film Director, Activist
Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Meathead

As a performer, Rob Reiner greatest fame came from All in the Family, where he played the lovable but longwinded liberal Michael Stivic, Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton's son-in-law and Sally Struthers' husband. Later in his career he morphed into a director, and crafted many people's favorite films from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, including the near-perfect fairy tale The Princess Bride with Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin, the 1950s adolescent memoir Stand By Me with the young River Phoenix, the quintessential romance When Harry Met Sally with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, and the brilliant mock rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, featuring such timeless tunes as "Big Bottoms" and "Lick My Love Pump."

His father is actor, comedian, and film director Carl Reiner, and young Reiner joined the Screen Actors Guild at the age of eleven when his father got him a small part on an episode of 77 Sunset Strip. Through his late teens and early 20s he worked on TV shows from Alfred Hitchcock Presents to Batman to That Girl. At 21 he was a staff writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Reiner's film debut was a bit part in The Big Mouth with Jerry Lewis in the title role, and his first substantial role was in his father's Enter Laughing with Jose Ferrer and Shelley Winters. He played attorney George Segal's client in his father's brilliant comedy Where's Poppa? with Ruth Gordon, but before All in the Family Reiner was probably best known as 'Leaky', Jeff Bridges' classmate at an almost-all-black inner-city high school in Halls of Anger. In his most memorable moment in that movie, Reiner briefly admires a pretty black girl, which leads to a near-race riot.

He became famous playing "Meathead" on All in the Family, but Reiner had other projects in the 1970s. He wrote the pilot episode of Happy Days for Ron Howard, and produced a short-lived but high-quality dramatic series for ABC, Free Country, which was Joe Pantoliano's big break. He also produced the TV movie More Than Friends, a sweet but not sticky romance starring Reiner and his then-wife Penny Marshall. The film has a happy ending, but the stars divorced mere months after the movie aired.

After All in the Family, Reiner produced and starred in an unsold pilot called The TV Show, a sketch comedy concept with a cast of future stars including Crystal, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. ABC showed the pilot, but showed no interest in picking up the series. A few years later, Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer made This Is Spinal Tap, with Crystal in a cameo role, launching Reiner's directorial career.

Reiner had an impressive winning streak with seven big box office and critically-acclaimed films in a row, beginning with Spinal Tap and culminating with the military drama A Few Good Men starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. Then came the disastrous flop North, an ill-conceived comedy about a boy divorcing his parents, but Reiner rebounded with The American President starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. Since then, though, Reiner's work as a director has yielded neither embarrassment nor noteworthy success. His last film was Rumor Has It with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner, an amusing semi-sequel to The Graduate.

Reiner co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment & Television, which has produced his films and the works of others, including Before Sunrise, The Green Mile, Miss Congeniality, The Shawshank Redemption, and the sit-com Seinfeld. Castle Rock is now a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, and Reiner is a very wealthy man.

He is politically active in California, where he was a leading proponent of a tax on cigarettes passed in 1998, raising funds for early-childhood education. He founded Parents' Action for Children (formerly the I Am Your Child foundation), focusing on the importance of the first three years in a child's lifelong healthy development. Reiner has been mentioned as an eventual candidate for Governor of California.

Father: Carl Reiner (actor-director)
Mother: Estelle Lebost (jazz singer, b. 1914, m. 1943)
Brother: Lucas Reiner (erstwhile film director)
Sister: Sylvia Ann Reiner
Wife: Penny Marshall (actress-director, m. 10-Apr-1971, div. 1979)
Daughter: Tracey Reiner (actress, b. 1964, Marshall's daughter from previous marriage, adopted by Reiner)
Girlfriend: Elizabeth McGovern (actress, dated late 1980s)
Wife: Michelle Singer (photographer, m. 1989, one son, one daughter)
Son: Nick Reiner (b. 14-Sep-1993)
Daughter: Romy Reiner (b. 27-Dec-1997)

    High School: Beverly Hills High School, Beverly Hills, CA (1964)
    University: University of California at Los Angeles

    Al Franken for Senate
    Dean for America
    Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
    Friends for Harry Reid
    Friends of Hillary
    Gore 2000
    Hillary Clinton for President
    Hillary Rodham Clinton for US Senate Committee
    John Edwards for President
    John Kerry for President
    Kerry Victory 2004
    Midwest Values PAC
    MoveOn.org
    Obama for America
    Obama for Illinois
    Obama Victory Fund 2012
    Reuniting Our Country PAC
    Emmy Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, All in the Family (1977)
    Emmy Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, All in the Family (1973)
    Funeral: Nora Ephron (2012)
    Risk Factors: Obesity

    TELEVISION
    All in the Family Meathead (1971-78)
    Hopeless Pictures Futterman (voice, 2005-)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
    LBJ (9-Sep-2016)
    Being Charlie (14-Sep-2015)
    And So It Goes (10-Jul-2014)
    The Magic of Belle Isle (1-Jun-2012)
    Flipped (6-Aug-2010)
    The Bucket List (16-Dec-2007)
    Rumor Has It... (22-Dec-2005)
    Alex and Emma (16-Jun-2003)
    The Story of Us (13-Oct-1999)
    Ghosts of Mississippi (20-Dec-1996)
    The American President (17-Nov-1995)
    North (22-Jul-1994)
    A Few Good Men (11-Dec-1992)
    Misery (30-Nov-1990)
    When Harry Met Sally (12-Jul-1989)
    The Princess Bride (25-Sep-1987)
    Stand By Me (8-Aug-1986)
    The Sure Thing (1-Mar-1985)
    This Is Spinal Tap (2-Mar-1984)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Sandy Wexler (14-Apr-2017)
    And So It Goes (10-Jul-2014)
    The Case Against 8 (18-Jan-2014) · Himself
    The Wolf of Wall Street (25-Dec-2013)
    These Amazing Shadows (22-Jan-2011) · Himself
    Certifiably Jonathan (1-Mar-2007) · Himself
    Everyone's Hero (15-Sep-2006) [VOICE]
    Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (3-Sep-2003) · Himself
    Alex and Emma (16-Jun-2003) · Wirschafter
    The Majestic (11-Dec-2001) · Studio Executive [VOICE]
    The Story of Us (13-Oct-1999) · Stan
    The Muse (27-Aug-1999) · Himself
    Ed TV (26-Mar-1999) · Whitaker
    Primary Colors (20-Mar-1998) · Izzy Rosenblatt
    Mad Dog Time (8-Nov-1996)
    The First Wives Club (20-Sep-1996) · Dr. Morris Packman
    For Better or Worse (18-Feb-1996)
    Bye Bye, Love (17-Mar-1995) · Dr. Townsend
    Mixed Nuts (21-Dec-1994)
    Bullets Over Broadway (16-Sep-1994)
    Sleepless in Seattle (25-Jun-1993) · Jay
    A Spinal Tap Reunion: The 25th Anniversary London Sell-Out (31-Dec-1992)
    The Spirit of '76 (12-Oct-1990)
    Postcards from the Edge (12-Sep-1990) · Joe Pierce
    Throw Momma from the Train (11-Dec-1987) · Joel
    This Is Spinal Tap (2-Mar-1984) · Marty DiBergi
    Fire Sale (6-Jan-1978)
    Thursday's Game (14-Apr-1974)
    Summertree (6-Jun-1971)
    Where's Poppa? (9-Jul-1970)
    Halls of Anger (29-Apr-1970)
    Enter Laughing (25-Feb-1967)


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