NEW YORK — Richard Belzer, the longtime slapstick comedian who grew to become certainly one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in “Murder: Life on the Avenue” and “Regulation & Order: SVU,” has died. He was 78.
Belzer died Sunday at his house in Bozouls in southern France, his longtime good friend Invoice Scheft advised The Hollywood Reporter. Comic Laraine Newman first introduced his demise on Twitter. The actor Henry Winkler, Belzer’s cousin, wrote “Relaxation in peace Richard.”
For greater than 20 years and throughout 10 sequence — together with even appearances on “30 Rock” and “Arrested Improvement” — Belzer performed the wise-cracking murder detective susceptible to conspiracy theories. Belzer first performed Munch on a 1993 episode of “Murder” and final performed him in 2016 on “Regulation & Order: SVU.”
Belzer by no means auditioned for the function. After listening to him on “The Howard Stern Present,” government producer Barry Levinson introduced Belzer in to learn for the half.
“I might by no means be a detective. But when I have been, that’s how I’d be,” Belzer as soon as mentioned. “They write to all my paranoia and anti-establishment dissidence and conspiracy theories. So it’s been quite a lot of enjoyable for me. A dream, actually.”
