The Tragic Death and Enduring Legacy of Rob Reiner

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, 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 17. Julie, I appreciate you coming in today. Thanks for having me. I just wanna 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 wanna 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 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. Yes. And then on Tuesday, prosecutors announced that they intended to charge Nick Reiner with two counts of first degree murder. Right. Making very official this genuinely horrible scenario in which a child had killed both of his parents. Correct. And the son, Nick Reiner, had a long documented history of drug addiction. And, you know, that story had been out there for years. He had struggled since he was a teenager. He had been in and out of rehab. He had gone through bouts of homelessness when he didn't wanna be in the rehab that his parents wanted him to be in. But he eventually made his way back home and started living in his parents' guest house. Mhmm. And what I'm told is they had a very tight knit, warm household. 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 …