Rob Reiner A”H – ‘As You Wish’

No death of a Hollywood director has ever received the attention that the murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner has. Why?

1 – Precisely because they were murdered. No major film director had ever been previously murdered.

2 – They weren’t murdered by a random stranger, but by their own son. Furthermore, he slaughtered them savagely, carving them up with a knife. Since a knife, unlike a bullet, doesn’t kill instantaneously, and since they were killed sequentially, both realized, with unimaginable horror, their executioner was their own flesh and blood.

3 – In addition to being a talented director with many legendary hits on his resume, according to everyone who worked with him, he was a supremely kind, endearing human being. The appellation ubiquitously applied to him was “A Mensch.”

4 – Universally beloved “Mensches” are exceedingly rare in Hollywood (or anywhere else.) This was a grievous, tragic irreplaceable loss.

There is however, a fifth reason, perhaps most painful. These murders, certainly in the moment, could have been prevented. Everyone who had seen their son at the extravagant Hollywood party they had brought him to earlier that evening knew that he was dangerously out of control. Several guests wanted to call the police, but the host Conan O’Brien insisted it was his home, and his party, and he didn’t want the police summoned.

In O’Brien’s defense, he was probably expressing the Reiners’ wishes.

Were the Reiners in denial? Were they blind to what everyone else at the party saw?

On the contrary, they were more cognizant than anyone. Rob Reiner told several people as he was forced to prematurely leave that he was “Petrified” his son would attack them when they returned home.

Then, why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he call the police?

The answer is, he knew what would happen if he did. His son was so undeniably a clear and present danger, even if Rob wasn’t a beloved celebrity, they would be forced to apprehend him. (This presumes he would have willingly cooperated. Had he resisted, attacked them, they might have been forced to kill him in the home.)

Where would they have taken him? At best, a local hospital might have a locked psychiatric prison-ward. Having taught on wards like this, I can attest to how brutal these facilities are. Furthermore, if he was as out of control as described, he would have been placed in “Restraints”, a euphemism for a straight-jacket, something out of The Snake Pit, a horror film about involuntary psychiatric hospitalization based on the author’s personal experience.

With their son’s extensive psychiatric history, Rob and Michelle Reiner were very aware of all of this. Michelle, whose mother was incarcerated in Auschwitz would have been particularly sensitive to her child being locked up. (I’m not suggesting anything compares to a death-camp. See my previous essay: Who is Hitler Today? November 17, 2025)

Reiner’s most beloved film was The Princess Bride, in which the hero succinctly proclaims his illimitable love for the heroine by continually repeating three words, “As you wish.” In the film’s closing sentence, those words are repeated by the grandfather to his grandson who suddenly realizes what the real love story is.

The unconditional atavistic love we have for our children and grandchildren can result in our sacrificing our lives for them. Whether it is courageous, or ill-advised, as it was with the Reiners, it is still a beautiful thing.

Albeit tragically, Rob and Michelle’s last words to their son were “As you wish.”