Richard Jay Belzer (born August 4, 1944) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, and actor, perhaps best known for his work as Sgt. John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Early life and education
Belzer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Francis and Charles Belzer. His father was a candy and tobacco wholesaler.[1] Belzer grew up with his parents and older brother Leonard. As a youth, Belzer worked as a paperboy and at Modern Tobacco (his parents business) part time while attending high school. was "kicked out of every school he attended." Nonetheless, Belzer attended and graduated from Andrew Warde High School in the neighboring town of Fairfield, Connecticut. Both parents died while he was young; he was 18 when his mother died of cancer and 22 when his father committed suicide.
After high school, Belzer worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post. He attended Dean Junior College in Franklin, Massachusetts, for two semesters and part of a third before the school asked him to leave for leading too many student demonstrations. According to one interview, he was majoring in physical education.[citation needed] After leaving college, Belzer enlisted into the Army. For a brief period, he studied and then later taught yoga. One of his earliest comedy routines included a character "Yogi Yogi, the Yodeler", a contestant in a yodeling contest.
Stand-up comic
Belzer's enlistment was terminated early.[citation needed] He married Gail Ross; this union ended in divorce. Belzer relocated to New York City, moved in with singer Shelley Ackerman, and began working as a stand-up comic at Pips, The Improv, and Catch a Rising Star. He participated in the Channel One comedy group that satirized television and became the basis for the cult movie The Groove Tube, in which Belzer played the costar of the ersatz TV show "The Dealers."
Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for Saturday Night Live in its premiere season and made three guest appearances on the show in 1976 and 1978.
Film acting
In the late 1970s and early '80s, Belzer became an occasional film actor. He is noted for his small roles in Fame, Night Shift, and Scarface. Belzer (billed as "Richard Brando") went on to provide the voice of "The Breather" in the box office flop Student Bodies. He also appeared in the music videos for the Mike + The Mechanics song "Taken In" and for the Pat Benatar song "Le Bel Age". He had a movie role as an LAPD detective in A Very Brady Sequel.
In addition to his film career, Belzer has a place in radio history as a featured player on the National Lampoon Radio Hour with co-stars John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis, a half-hour comedy program aired on some 600 U.S. stations from 1973 to 1975. Several of his sketches were released on National Lampoon albums drawn from the Radio Hour, including several bits in which he portrayed a pithy call-in talk show host named "Dick Ballentine". In the late 1970s, he cohosted Brink & Belzer on 660AM WNBC (New York City). He has also been a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show; he is noted for his combative, but playful, banter. (Stern recently admonished Belzer for being a last-minute, no-show emcee for an animal group's charity event. Stern recanted after Belzer explained [off the air] what caused the absence.)
Television
In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television. He was a regular on The Flash television show. In several episodes of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he played Inspector William Henderson. He followed that success with starring roles on Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–), playing the same character (Det. John Munch) in both series. Barry Levinson, executive director of Homicide, said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his audition when he first read lines from the script for "Gone for Goode", the first episode in the series.[2] Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again. During his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance.[3]
In addition, he has also played Det. John Munch in episodes of six other series (and in one talk show):
Munch has become the only fictional character, played by a single actor, to appear on nine different television shows. These shows were on four different networks: NBC (Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and "Law & Order: Trial by Jury"); Fox (The X-Files; Arrested Development); UPN (The Beat); and HBO (The Wire).
In 1996, Belzer appeared in the comedy film, A Very Brady Sequel.
He also appeared in several of Comedy Central's broadcasts of the Friars Club roast. During the Friar's Club Roast[4] (Comedy Central, Sunday December 1, 2002) of Chevy Chase, Belzer said, "The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him up the ass."
On June 9, 2001, Belzer was honored by the New York Friars Club and the Toyota Comedy Festival as the honoree of the first-ever roast that was open to the public. Comedians and friends on the dais included Roastmaster Paul Shaffer; Christopher Walken; Danny Aiello; Barry Levinson; Robert Klein; Bill Maher; SVU costars Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni, Ice-T, and Dann Florek; and Law & Order's Jerry Orbach.
Richard Belzer also voiced the character of Loogie for most of the episode of South Park entitled The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000.
Belzer and Brian Doyle-Murray were featured in the tenth-season premiere of Sesame Street.
Filmography
Television
Personal life
Belzer married actress Harlee McBride in 1985. His previous marriages were with Gail Susan Ross (1966–72) and Dalia Danoch (1976–78).
Belzer never testified on behalf of a criminal who was running from actual Baltimore police. He has stated this himself as a rumor on an interview with Chris Harrison and Hollywood 411. [5]
Belzer owns property in the south of France, where he and his wife Harlee live when Belzer is not working in the United States.
Belzer was sexually molested multiple times by a Rabbi when he was five years old. Although he informed his parents of the repeated molestation, nobody reported the incidents to the police. [6]
Hulk Hogan incident
On March 27, 1985, just days prior to the inaugural WrestleMania, Belzer requested on his cable TV talk show Hot Properties that Hulk Hogan demonstrate one of his signature wrestling moves. Hogan put Belzer in a front-chin lock, or sleeper hold, which caused Belzer to pass out. When Hogan released him, Belzer hit his head on the floor, sustaining a laceration to the scalp that required a brief hospitalization.[7][8]
Initially lying unconscious and bleeding, Belzer suddenly sprang to his feet just in time to make the necessary announcements leading to the commercial break. Recalling the incident on Late Night with David Letterman, Belzer explained that it was "show business in his blood" willing him back to his feet to protect the integrity of the show.
Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and later settled out of court; the settlement was rumored at $1.5 million. On October 20, 2006, on Bubba the Love Sponge, it was claimed (with Hogan in the studio) that the settlement totaled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon. During his June 23, 2008 appearance on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, Belzer suggested that the real settlement amount was actually closer to $400,000.[9]
Belzer used the incident in his HBO special "Another Lone Nut" as part of his stand-up routine.
Health problems
Belzer survived testicular cancer in 1984. His HBO special and comedy CD Another Lone Nut[10] pokes fun at this as well as his status as a well-known "conspiracy theorist".
Political Endorsements
In 2004, Belzer endorsed the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) from the early days of his campaign until his loss to President George W. Bush. Belzer also supported Barack Obama (D-IL) in his successful campaign for President of the United States in 2008.
Radio Program
Following the departure of Randi Rhodes from Air America Radio, Belzer guest-hosted the afternoon program on the network.
Books by Richard Belzer
References
External links
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Richard Belzer
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