Who is Richard Belzer?

Detailed Richard Belzer Biography

What is Richard Belzer Age?

Who’re Richard Belzer Family Members?

Who’re Richard Belzer Children?

Who’s Richard Belzer Wife/ Husband?

What is Richard Belzer Net Worth 2020?

Richard Belzer Social Media Accounts

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Richard Jay Belzer (born August 4, 1944) is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor.

Best recognized for his cast as BPD Detective, NYPD Detective/Sergeant and DA Investigator John Munch, whom he has drawn as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest appearances on a number of other series.

He has portrayed the characters for 23 years from 1993 to 2016.

Richard Belzer Biography

Nationality & Age as of 2019

He is born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His citizen is American and ethnicity is Ashkenazi Jewish and as of 2019, he is 74 years old.

Family

He was the son of Frances(mother) and Charles Belzer(father) a tobacco and candy retailer. He grew up in a Jewish family.

Belzer has described his mother as a physically abusive person. He announced that his comedy career started when trying to make his mother laugh in order to distract her from abusing him and his brother.

His mother (Frances) died of breast cancer when Richard was 18. His father (Charles) committed suicide when he was 22. A devotion is written to him in Belzer’s “UFO’s, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don’t Have To Be Crazy To Believe” (Ballantine Books, 1999).

Personal Life

Belzer survived testicular cancer in 1983. His HBO special and comedy CD Another Lone Nut pokes fun at this healing incident as well as his state as a well-known conspiracy theorist.

Hulk Hogan

On March 27, 1985, 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. After being asked by Belzer several times, Hogan put Belzer in a front chin-lock, 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. Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and settled out of court. He used the incident in his HBO special Another Lone Nut as part of his stand-up routine.

Richard Belzer

Marriage, Wife/Spouse(Harlee McBride) & Children

Belzer’s first two marriages were to Gail Susan Ross (1966–72) and boutique manager Dalia Danoch (1976 – c. 1978). Ends up divorcing them.

And in In 1981 in Los Angeles, he meets the 31-year-old Harlee McBride.  Richard marries her In, 1985. The couple has 2 children together, a son(Bree Benton) and a daughter(Jessica).

Eventually, the couple then divorces.

Harlee McBride

Is an American actress, best known for the role of Cynthia Chatterley in Young Lady Chatterley and Young Lady Chatterley II.

She had been seen in Playboy magazine four years earlier in that year’s sex-in-cinema feature, in conjunction with Young Lady Chatterley, was appearing in TV commercials for Ford motors and acting in free theater, when she met Belzer at the suggestion of a friend. The two married in 1985.

Leonard Belzer Died

Belzer’s older brother, Leonard Belzer (age 73) committed suicide in the wee hours of July 30, 2014, by jumping from the roof of the New York City luxury apartment building in which he had lived in. Belzer’s father had also committed suicide in 1968.

Belzer is a cousin of actor Henry Winkler.

Education

Belzer graduates from Fairfield Warde High School and heads off to work as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post. Belzer attends Dean College(then known as Dean Junior College), in Franklin, Massachusetts. He is later expelled for leading demonstrations for stupid causes.

Rumors, Controversy, and Criticism

Richard and his partner broke up. He exchanged vows in an intimate morning ceremony at a secret location. He has cancer too.

Richard secretly married on April 3, 2017. He has died at the age of 72.

Is Richard Belzer Dead or Alive?

Rumors on the Internet that actor and author Belzer has died are not true.

He is alive. Recently he announced he had a brother, Lean, who died. Belzer confirmed that his brother’s death was ruled by suicide.

Career

Stand-up Comedy

After his first 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 engaged 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 and made three guest appearances on the show between 1975 and 1980. He also opened for musician Warren Zevon during his tour supporting the release of his album Excitable Boy.

Film

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Belzer displayed an occasional film actor. He is regarded for small roles in Fame, Café Flesh, Night Shift, and Scarface.

Radio

In addition to his film career, Belzer was 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 displayed on 600 plus U.S. stations from 1973 to 1975.

He co-hosted Brink & Belzer on 660AM WNBC radio in New York City. He has been a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show.

Following the withdrawal of Randi Rhodes from Air America Radio, Belzer guest-hosted the afternoon show on the network.

Television

In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television. He was a regular on The Flash as a news anchor and reporter. In several episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he played Inspector William Henderson.

He followed that with starring roles on the Baltimore-based Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) and the New York-based Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–2013), portraying police detective John Munch in both series.

Barry Levinson, executive director of Homicide, said Belzer was a “lousy actor” in an audition when he read lines from the script for “Gone for Goode”, the first episode in the series. Levinson asked Belzer to take time to reread and practice the material, then read it again. At his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was “still terrible”, but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance.

In addition, Belzer has played Munch in episodes on seven other series and in a sketch on one talk show, making Munch the only fictional character to appear on eleven different television shows played by a single actor. These shows were on six different networks:

• Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC)
• Law & Order (NBC)
• The X-Files (Fox)
• The Beat (UPN)
• Law & Order: Trial by Jury (NBC)
  • Belzer’s appearance on Trial by Jury, which aired April 15, 2005, made him the third actor ever to play the same character in six different prime time TV series.
    The other two actors are John Ratzenberger and George Wendt, who played Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson, respectively, in Cheers (1982–93); St. Elsewhere (1985); The Tortellis (1987); Wings (1990); The Simpsons (1994); and Frasier (2002).
• Arrested Development (Fox)
• The Wire (HBO)
• 30 Rock (NBC)
  • The characters are watching a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode; a scene shot for 30 Rock
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)
• Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), in which he played a John Munch-like character on a fictional Law & Order spinoff.