MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The world lost a pair of Hollywood luminaries with the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife on Sunday. Compared to her movie director spouse, Michele Singer Reiner was less in the public eye. But as NPR's Chloe Veltman reports she was a formidable photographer, movie producer and social justice activist.
CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: When Michele Singer Reiner and her husband Rob stood together onstage to accept a lifetime achievement award from a gay civil rights group in 2011, he tried his best to coax her up to the mic.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROB REINER: You want to tell them?
MICHELE SINGER REINER: No, you tell them. This is good...
REINER: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
VELTMAN: So the movie director explained that his wife was the driving force behind their advocacy for equal marriage rights. It was a question of simple equality. Plus, he joked...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REINER: Because we kept hearing Brad Pitt say that he wouldn't marry Angelina Jolie until everyone had the right to get married. So basically, we're doing it for Brad Pitt.
(LAUGHTER)
VELTMAN: Singer Reiner was quiet at public events. But at home, her husband said, she was very outspoken.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REINER: Yeah. And thank God she is outspoken because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing without her.
SINGER REINER: That's right.
REINER: Yes, that's...
(LAUGHTER)
REINER: See? See, there you go.
JOURNEY GUNDERSON: Michele wasn't seeking the spotlight. She seemed to always be helping behind closed doors.
VELTMAN: Journey Gunderson is the executive director of the National Comedy Center, which houses the archives of Rob's famous father, Carl Reiner.
GUNDERSON: But it wasn't as though her voice wasn't strong or on equal footing.
VELTMAN: In a 2018 interview with CNN, Rob Reiner credited his wife with figuring out what to do after Alec Baldwin dropped out of the director's 2017 thriller "Shock And Awe" two days before shooting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REINER: And my wife, Michele, who produced the film with me, she said, well, why don't you do it?
VELTMAN: Reiner added that she gave him one piece of acting advice.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REINER: She says to me, just try to make it less Jewish.
VELTMAN: Michele Singer first gained acclaim in the 1980s as a photographer. She shot the cover portrait for Donald Trump's 1987 book, "The Art Of The Deal." She and Reiner met when she was taking pictures on the set of his rom-com, "When Harry Met Sally..." in 1989.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...")
BILLY CRYSTAL: (As Harry Burns) The first time we met, we hated each other.
MEG RYAN: (As Sally Albright) No, you didn't hate me. I hated you.
VELTMAN: The film was supposed to end with the central couple never getting together. But Reiner chose a happy ending after meeting his future wife on set. Rob and Michele married and raised a family. Friends describe the closeness of the couple's home life.
BARRY MARKOWITZ: One big family full of love.
VELTMAN: Cinematographer Barry Markowitz collaborated with the Reiners on such movies as the 2015 feature "Being Charlie" and was a close friend. He told NPR he bonded with Singer Reiner over their shared Jewish heritage. Both had parents who survived Auschwitz.
MARKOWITZ: Michele is what we call a balabusta. She's the king, the queen. She makes sure everything's right and the food and the people. And, you know, she was incredible.
VELTMAN: Markowitz, who's based in Israel, always stayed with the family on his visits to Los Angeles.
MARKOWITZ: It would be like an insult to the Reiners if I went somewhere else.
VELTMAN: He added, that's the kind of love that was in that house.
Chloe Veltman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXIS FFRENCH'S "BLUEBIRD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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