Richard Belzer, a cherished comic who rose to fame as the cynical but steadfast detective John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, has passed away. Belzer began his career as an edgy stand-up comedian. He was 78.
The actor Richard Belzer passed away early on Sunday at his house in Bozouls, southwest France, according to writer Bill Scheft, a close friend of the actor. He was really ill, and his last words were, “Fuck you, motherfucker,” according to Scheft.
In the humorous The Groove Tube (1974), where he made his feature debut, Richard Belzer warmed up the audience for Saturday Night Live and was famously sent to sleep by Hulk Hogan.
Munch initially appeared in 1993 on the premiere of Homicide, and his final appearance was on Law & Order: SVU in 2016.
Richard Belzer portrayed the detective on eight other television shows between those two NBC dramas, and his tenure with the role was longer than James Arness’ on Gunsmoke and Kelsey Grammer’s on Cheers and Frasier.
Munch, who was based on a real-life Baltimore detective, was undoubtedly one of the most iconic police officers in television history. He was a brilliant and tenacious investigator who held conspiracy theories, disdained the establishment, and pursued justice with a jaded eye.
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He frequently used dry, sarcastic jokes to illustrate his points, such as “I’m a homicide detective.” The standard Munch response was, “The only time I ask why is when they tell me the truth.”
According to a 2016 interview on the website The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, Barry Levinson, the executive producer of Homicide, remembers hearing Belzer on The Howard Stern Show and liking him because of Munch.”Why don’t we find out about Richard Belzer?” While we were looking at other actors, I said.said Levinson. “I enjoy the cadence of his speech. And that is how it occurred.
The emaciated Belzer played Munch throughout the show’s seven seasons on NBC. The actor wasn’t quite prepared to leave the part when it ended in 1999. He had made three appearances as Munch on NBC’s Law & Order between 1996 and 1999 and believed he may fit in well there.
After Homicide was cancelled, my wife suggested that we pop a bottle of champagne and honor the seven years tLaw & Order.hat I had spent playing this character as we were traveling across France. Richard Belzer wrote about Order: ALaw & Order: Special Victims Unit Unofficial Companion, published in 2009.
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Then, because Munch and I had collaborated on the crossover, I recalled that Benjamin Bratt was leaving L&O. I told my manager to call Dick Wolf and see if Munch might replace [Det. Lennie] Briscoe as his partner. After receiving his call, Dick responded, “What a terrific concept, but I’ve already cast Jesse Martin to play the new man [alongside Jerry Orbach].”
Wolf, though, was working on a Law & Order spinoff that would center on the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit, the group that looks into crimes with a sexual component. For that, he wanted Munch.
Munch moved from Baltimore to New York when Law & Order: SVU premiered in September 1999 to work alongside Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). To lead the team, Captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek) was transferred from Law & Order.
The dark tone of the series turned out to be appropriate for Munch’s cynical temperament, and Belzer remained for 14 seasons. In 2014, the character made the announcement that he was leaving the NYPD, but Munch made a comeback two years later in the episode “Fashionable Crimes” from the 17th season.
A 1997 episode of The X-Files featured Belzer as Munch and properly explored the show’s resident conspiracists, the Lone Gunmen. He also made appearances on The Beat, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, and The Wire. On Arrested Development, 30 Rock, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, he portrayed the funny cop. Even a puppet that resembled Munch appeared on Sesame Street.
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“I never requested to be on anyone’s show. The fact that I’m portrayed in a script and that I’m so well-known and lovable as the sarcastic detective and smart-ass is thus doubly flattering to me, Richard Belzer said in an interview in 2008.He’s a terrific character for me to play, so it’s fun for me, much to my enjoyment. As a result, I have no qualms about being stereotyped.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, on August 4, 1944, Richard Jay Belzer was born. His mother beat him and his older brother, Len, which contributed to his propensity for comedy.
In 1993, he told People magazine that “she always had some justification for beating us.” The most difficult room I’ve ever worked in was my kitchen. I had to make my mother laugh or risk getting kicked in the ass.
Belzer’s tenure at Dean Junior College in Massachusetts came to a sudden end when he was expelled for orchestrating on-campus protests. Belzer, who described himself as having an “uncontrollable wit,” frequently caused disruptions in the classroom.Then came a slew of strange occupations, such as census taker, dock worker, and diamond salesman. He once worked for The Bridgeport Post as a journalist in pursuit of a profession.
Belzer had to reevaluate his goals after a catastrophe. In 1967, three years after his mother Frances passed away from breast cancer, his father Charles, a salesman who was grieving over the loss of his wife, made an attempt on his life. Belzer located him and spared his life, but his father was successful a year later. (In 2014, after his wife, Sesame Street director Emily Squires, had passed away, Belzer’s brother, who created the radio show The Comedy Hour, would similarly commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his Upper West Side apartment building.)
Belzer claimed that, after being deeply affected by his father’s passing, he thought it was time to try humor.
On a whim, Belzer responded to an advertisement in The Village Voice for an audition for the East Village comedy group Channel One, which is run by Ken Shapiro and Lane Sarasohn. He performed the routines he had developed as a child, including impersonations of Marlon Brando, Jerry Lewis, and Bob Dylan, at his bar mitzvah, and was hired in 1971.
Channel One’s program, Groove Tube, was known for its sketches that lampooned common TV tropes, including anchormen and clowns on children’s programs. In a 1969 review for The New York Times, Clive Barnes advised readers to “go and see Groove Tube.” “It is a lot more enjoyable than staying in and watching TV.”
Channel One concurrently streamed the skits on three TV monitors inside the theater, enhancing its faux television universe. Moreover, Shapiro and Sarasohn videotaped the performances and assembled them into a show to be shown to nearby colleges.
The response was sufficiently positive to convert the concept into a movie deal, which resulted in the R-rated, sketch-heavy The Groove Tube. In a satire of police dramas, Richard Belzer played a lowlife drug dealer, a president of the United States heckling a foreign dignitary, and a drag blackface prostitute. (The film served as Chevy Chase’s debut as well.)
In a 2010 interview with The A.V. Club, Belzer said, “We were really high—when we created it, when we shot it, when it opened, and when we discovered we’d made a movie.” Groove Tube was shown on three monitors in a 90-seat theater before it was a movie, so it was genuinely underground in that sense. So, it was quite inventive for individuals to pay to watch television before cable.
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Because of his work with Channel One, Belzer was able to perform stand-up at venues in New York like Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, and Pips.
In addition to Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis, he appeared in the National Lampoon Radio Hour. Then, in 1975, when Lorne Michaels debuted Saturday Night Live, he chose Belzer to serve as the show’s opening act. (Belzer claimed that Michael’s inspiration for SNL came from The Groove Tube.)
Regardless of what anyone said, he told NPR in 1989 that it was exciting to be a part of that since many people didn’t know how it would be received. “Having all of these ‘anti-establishment’ folks have a TV show on a network was like handing the kids the key to the shop,” one person said.
I was therefore requested to create some sketches and perform the warm-ups. And i merely continued to act as I did at clubs. Also i addressed the crowd. I performed some of my material but also did my best to improvise and ad-lib. And doing that in a television studio rather than a club was fascinating.
Hogan and Mr. T were among the guests on Belzer’s brief-lived Lifetime talk show Hot Properties in March 1985, while they were there to support the first WrestleMania. The 6-foot-8, 300-pound Hogan placed the 6-foot-1, 150-pound Belzer in a front chinlock, rendering him unconscious. After releasing him, the limp comic struck his head on the ground, drawing blood.
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In 1990, Roy Firestone was told by Richard Belzer that “he almost killed me.” “A sports medical expert warned me that if I had fallen a few inches in either direction, I could have been permanently disabled or even killed.” He filed a $5 million lawsuit against Hogan, Mr. T, Vince McMahon, and the World Wrestling Federation. In a 1990 settlement, he reportedly received $400,000. He claimed to have used the money for a down payment on a home in France.
Belzer’s resentment grew as he observed his peers, like Chase, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin, becoming successful actors. He acknowledged in his People interview that the only reason he agreed to appear on the obscene cable game program Anything Goes was to help fund a family trip to Hawaii.
Belzer described the procedure thus: “Three contestants come out, and the celebrity panel takes a good look at them.” The judges then had to guess which participant it was by having female contestants shove their bare breasts through a cutout and male contestants their bare buttocks. I mouth the line “I did it for the money” as the camera focuses on me at the end and throughout the credits. It was the only time in my life that I sold out.
And then everything was altered by John Munch.
Belzer also had small roles in Author! Author! (1982), Night Shift (1982), Flicks (1983), America (1986), Fletch Lives (1989), The Big Picture (1989), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Get on the Bus (1996), and The Man in the Moon. He also played an MC in Fame (1980) and Scarface (1983), in which he essentially played himself (1999).
He also played Inspector Henderson on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, had a recurring part on The Flash during the 1990s, and made appearances in the music videos for Pat Benatar and Mike & the Mechanics.
Belzer also wrote books on a variety of topics, including How to Be a Stand-Up Comic in 1988, UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don’t Have to Be Crazy to Believe in 2000, and I Am Not a Cop! : A Novel in 2008, which was about an actor by the name of Richard Belzer who portrays a TV cop named Munch and is investigating a murder.
His third wife, actress Harlee McBride, who played medical examiner Alyssa Dyer on the television show Homicide, is still alive, as are his stepdaughters Jessica and Bree.
