Richard Belzer, Comic And a TV Cop, Dead At 78

Richard BelzerA beloved comedian who started out as an edgy standup performer, before becoming a well-known detective John Munch. Homicide: Street Life And Law & Order: Special Victims UnitHe has passed away. He was 78. 

Belzer passed away early Sunday morning at his Bozouls, southwest France home, according to Bill Scheft, a writer and long-time friend of Belzer. The Hollywood Reporter. “He had lots of health issues, and his last words were, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker,'” Scheft.

Belzer made his film debut with the hilarious Groove Tube (1974), warmed up the audience in the early days Saturday Night Live Hulk Hogan put her to sleep, and she is now a legend. 

Munch first appeared in 1993, on the first episode. Homicide And his last in 2016, Law & order: SVU. There are two NBC dramas in between., Belzer also played the role of detective on eight other series. His grip on the character lasted much longer than James Arness’. Gunsmoke Kelsey Grammer’s on Cheers And Frasier.

It is undoubtedly one of the most popular. Television history’s most memorable cops, Munch — based on a real-life Baltimore detective — was a highly intelligent, doggedly diligent investigator who believed in conspiracy theories, distrusted the system and pursued justice through a jaded eye. To prove his point, he would often resort to dry, acerbic wisdomcracks. “I’m a homicide detective. The only time I wonder why is when they tell me the truth,” A typical Munch retort followed.

In a 2016 interview for the website The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, Homicide Barry Levinson, executive producer Recalled Listen to Belzer on Howard Stern Show Munch, and how much you like him. “We were looking at some other actors, and when I heard him, I said, ‘Why don’t we find out about Richard Belzer?” Levinson spoke. “I like the rhythm of the way he talks. And that’s how that happened.”

In all seven seasons, the pencil-thin Belzer played Munch. The actor was not ready to let go of the role when it ended in 1999. He was Munch, a character he had played on NBC’s Law & Order Three times, 1996-1999. He thought he might make a great fit for the show. 

“When Homicide was canceled, I was in France with my wife and she said, ‘Let’s open a bottle of champagne and toast: You did this character for seven years,'” In 2009, Belzer was retold in the book Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Unofficial Companion. “And then I remembered that Benjamin Bratt was leaving L&O, and so I called my manager and said, ‘Call Dick Wolf — maybe Munch can become [Det. Lennie] Briscoe’s partner’ —- because we had teamed for the crossover. So he called and Dick said, ‘What a great idea, but I’ve already cast Jesse Martin to be the new guy [opposite Jerry Orbach].'”

Wolf, however was still in the process for developing a Law & Order Spinoff will focus on the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit, which investigates sexually-motivated crimes. Munch was his choice.

When Law & Order: The SVU Munch, who debuted in September 1999 had moved from Baltimore to New York to team up with Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay(det. Elliot StablerChristopher Meloni). Capt. Capt. Law & Order To lead the squad. 

Belzer stayed for 14 seasons because Munch’s sardonic demeanor was perfect for the series’ grim tone. In 2014, the character announced his resignation from the NYPD. However, Munch returned to the series a few years later in the 17th-season episode. “Fashionable Crimes.”

Belzer and Munch appeared in an episode of 1997’s The X-Files that appropriately dealt with the origins of the show’s resident conspiracists — the Lone Gunmen. He also appeared on The Beat, Law & Order: A Trial by Jury And The Wire He was a cop for laughs Arrested Development, 30 Rock And Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Even a puppet that looked like Munch showed up! Sesame Street.

“I never asked anyone to be on their show. So it’s doubly flattering to me to see me depicted in a script and that I’m so recognizable and lovable as the sarcastic detective and smart-ass,” Belzer Interview from 2008. “Much to my delight, because he is a great character for me to play, it’s fun for me. So I’m not upset about being typecast at all.”

Richard Jay Belzer was conceived in Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 4, 1944. His talent for comedy was born out of an abusive childhood, and a mother who beat him as well as his older brother Len.

“She always had some rationale for hitting us,” He Telled People magazine in 1993. “My kitchen was the toughest room I ever worked. I had to make my mom laugh or I’d get my ass kicked.” 

Belzer’s self-described “uncontrollable wit” He was often in trouble in the classroom and his time at Massachusetts’ Dean Junior College was cut short when he was kicked out for organizing campus protests. He was then offered a variety of odd jobs, such as a census taker, dock worker, and jewelry salesman. For a time he worked as a journalist. The Bridgeport Post newspaper. 

Belzer was forced to reconsider his priorities following a tragic event. Charles, a businessman and distraught over the death of his wife, Frances, tried suicide in 1967, three years after Frances’s mother died from breast cancer. Belzer saved his father’s life and found him, but his father died a year later. (Belzer’s brother, who produced the radio program The Comedy HourAfter his wife’s death, he would also commit suicide by jumping from the roof his Upper West Side apartment building. Sesame Street director Emily Squires, had died.)

Belzer said that his father’s passing had been a hard blow and that he felt it was time for him to try comedy.

Belzer responded to an ad in a lark. The Village Voice To audition for Channel One East Village Comedy Troupe, directed by Ken Shapiro Lane Sarasohn. He performed the bits he had honed growing up — including imitations of Marlon Brando, Jerry Lewis and, at his bar mitzvah, Bob Dylan — and got the gig in 1971.

Its show must be called Groove TubeChannel One was a channel that specialized in comedy skits about TV conventions, such as anchormen and clowns on children’s shows. “Go and see Groove Tube,” Clive Barnes had published in 1969. Review For The New York Times. “It is a whole lot better than staying home and watching television.”

Channel One raised the level of its mock television by simultaneously broadcasting the skits from three TV monitors within the theater. Sarasohn and Shapiro also recorded the performances and put them together into a program that could be played at local colleges.

The response was so strong, that they made a film deal. It became the R-rated, sketch-filled movie. Groove Tube. Belzer played a low-life drug dealer in a parody on police dramas. An American president chided a foreign dignitary while a drag queen and blackface prostitute was also in the scene. The movie was also the first Chevy Chase film.).

“We were very high — when we wrote it, when we shot it, when we premiered it and when we realized we’d made a movie,” Belzer In a 2010 interview with The A.V. Club. “It was truly underground in the sense that before it was a movie, we had a little theater and we showed Groove Tube on three monitors in a 90-seat theater. So for people to pay to see television, before cable, it was pretty innovative.”

Belzer’s success on Channel One led him to stand-up gigs at clubs such as Catch a Rising Star and the Improv in New York. He appeared on the National Lampoon Radio Hour Alongside Chase, John Belushi and Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray. And when Lorne Michaels launched Saturday Night Live He selected Belzer to warm up for the audience in 1975. (Belzer) Groove Tube Michael was Michael’s inspiration SNL.)

“It was thrilling in those days to be a part of that because — regardless of what anyone said — a lot of people didn’t know how that was going to be accepted,” He Telled NPR 1989. “This was like giving the kids the key to the store — to have all of these ‘anti-establishment’ people have a TV show on a network. So they asked me to do some sketches and do the warm-ups. I just kind of did what I did in nightclubs. I talked to the audience. I did some of my material, but I tried to improvise and ad-lib as much as I could. And it was fascinating doing that in a television studio and not in a nightclub.”

Belzer hosted the Lifetime talk show, which was short-lived. Hot Properties, where his guests in March 1985 included Hogan and Mr. T, on hand to promote the inaugural WrestleMania. The 6-foot-8, 300-pound Hogan placed the 6-foot-1 and 150-pound Belzer in front chinlock. He knocked him unconscious, then released him to the floor where the limp comedian banged on his head, drawing blood. 

“He came very close to killing me,” Belzer Telled Roy Firestone in 1990. “I was told by a sports medicine expert that if I had fallen a few inches either way I could have been crippled for life, I could have been dead.” He sued Hogan, Mr. T. Vince McMahon, and the World Wrestling Federation, for $5 million. He also received $400,0000 in a 1990 settlement which he claimed he used to pay down his house in France.

Belzer’s frustration grew as he saw his contemporaries Chase and Robin Williams become wealthy making movies. He admitted during his People Interview he agreed to appear in Everything worksA salacious cable game show that only exists to pay for a Hawaiian family vacation.

“Three contestants come out, and the celebrity panel takes a good look at them,” Belzer described the format. “Then female contestants had to stick their naked breasts through a cutout or men their bare buttocks, and the panel guessed which person it was. At the end, during the credits, the camera zooms in on me, and I mouth the words, ‘I did it for the money.’ It’s the only time I sold out in my life.”

Then John Munch made everything possible.

Belzer also played an MC — basically himself — in Fame (1980) Scarface (1983) and included bits. 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) The Man in Moon (1999).

Also, he was a regular on the series of 1990s. The FlashOn Inspector Henderson, he was played by. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman And he was a cameo in music videos by Pat Benatar.

Belzer, the author, published books on a variety of subjects including 1988’s. How to be a stand-up comic; 2000’s UFOs, JFK and Elvis: Conspiracies That You Don’t Need to Believe2008 I am Not a Cop!A Novel, which centered on an actor named Richard Belzer who plays a TV cop named Munch and investigates a murder.

Survivors include his third wife, actress Harlee McBride (they married in 1985, and she played medical examiner Alyssa Dyer on Homicide), and stepdaughters Jessica and Bree.

Mike Barnes contributed to the report.