Live updates: Nick Reiner to be charged with first degree murder in parents’ deaths, police say

Joe Inwood
World news correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

“He was what is
known in Hollywood is known as a mensch; just an all-around trustworthy,
reliable, wonderful person, and he was.”

That was the first thing Harry Shearer said, when we
spoke on the phone a short while ago. He wrote and starred in the comedy
classic This is Spinal Tap with Rob Reiner.

He then gave me his reaction when he first heard
the news of his friend’s death.

“I didn’t believe it. I thought ‘that can’t be true’.
Originally, we thought it might have been a break-in, then it got worse and
worse, as this story became more personal and more shocking in its
details.

They had known each other for decades.

“I have these this memory of sitting around his office
and it was just non-stop laughs. Rob was the kind of funny person that didn’t
fear or resent being around other people who were funny.”

“He seemed like a really good dad, he was a good
friend. He was very voluble in his political comments. You could sail along in
Hollywood very easily without doing that and it was ballsy of him to put his
career and his professional associations on the line for the stuff that he
believed in.”

I asked him what he will remember Rob Reiner
for.

“Steadfastness as a friend and partner and director. You could rely on him. It’s horrible. The longer and the longer story goes on, the worse it gets.”