Rob
Reiner
(1947 - )
Robert "Rob" Reiner (born March 6, 1947 in The Bronx, New York) is an American actor, director, producer, and writer. His father is Carl Reiner.
Reiner was born in The Bronx, New York, and grew up in New Rochelle, New York, where his family lived on Bonnie Meadow Road, the same address as the Petries on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." When Rob was about 13 the family moved to the Los Angeles area, where he attended Beverly Hills High School and the University of California, Los Angeles.
He became famous playing Michael Stivic (aka Meathead), Archie Bunker's liberal son-in-law, on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, which was the most-watched television program for five years in the United States (1971–1976). In the 1980s and 1990s, Reiner was best known as a director of successful Hollywood films. Some of these films — such as The Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap — have achieved cult status. The latter film, intended as a parody of rock documentaries, was so successful in imitating the style of rock films that many viewers were inadvertently fooled into thinking that the subject of the film, the fictitious heavy metal group "Spinal Tap," really existed.
In addition to his creative work with cinema, Reiner also had a significant administrative role, as founder and long-time co-owner of Castle Rock Entertainment. He named the production company after the fictitious town featured in many stories by Reiner's frequent collaborator, Stephen King.
In the late 1990s and continuing into the 2000s, Reiner has taken a vocal role supporting certain education-related proposals in California, including serving as a primary spokesman for the successful 1998 cigarette-tax initiative that has raised $700 million for early-childhood educational programs. He also campaigned in Iowa for Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean just before the 2004 Iowa caucus. Reiner is often mentioned as a possible candidate to run against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, but he has decided not to run for personal reasons.
Reiner was married to actress-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1979. He then married Michele Singer Reiner in 1989.
He has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post since May 2005.
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