Michele Singer Reiner did not hesitate to clink her glass at the dinner table. This was never a call for attention, never a setup for a toast.
It was a reminder that the singular rule of the Reiner dinner table was not being followed.
“One conversation at a time,” Ms. Singer Reiner would say, warmly yet firmly. “One. Conversation.”
Everyone at the dinner table — whether it was a 12-year-old forming an opinion or an esteemed politician — had the right to be heard in full. The clinking of the glass with a utensil was her way to make sure that no one would miss out on someone’s perspective, that there would be no competing stories, and no good jokes only heard by a pocket of people. She was a stickler about it, and took the rule seriously. Newcomers were not spared.
“Anyone who’s ever had dinner with her knows that she just hated that thing of somebody listening to a different conversation, or being distracted by what someone else was saying or missing the better story,” said Martine Singer, Ms. Singer Reiner’s younger sister, recalling the frequent ding-ding of her glass clinking. “In later years, everyone else did it in anticipation.”
Family members and friends of Ms. Singer Reiner and her husband of 36 years, Rob Reiner, have been reeling since the couple was found dead last Sunday in their home in West Los Angeles. Ms. Singer Reiner was 70, and Mr. Reiner was 78.
On Tuesday, prosecutors formally charged Nick Reiner, one of their three children, with the murder of his parents.
In the days after their deaths, The New York Times spoke with 10 relatives and friends who were part of Ms. Singer Reiner’s inner circle. They painted a portrait of a devoted, relentless and ever-funny woman.
She was the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor who was raised in a home with a deep sense of civic responsibility. More than one friend said she struggled to get comfortable at night when it was raining outside: She couldn’t sleep knowing there were people on the streets. She had a famous husband, Hollywood connections and projects of her own, but to many of her friends, she was simply the warm head of the table wanting everyone to be heard.
A Family Ethos Born From Tragedy
The activist spirit runs through her family.
Nicole Silberkleit, Ms. Singer Reiner’s mother, was 17 when she and 11 members of her family were taken by the Nazis in Nice, France. She was eventually transported to Auschwitz, and was able to escape a death march in 1944. When the war ended, she learned that of the dozen members of her family taken from Nice by the Nazis, she was the lone survivor.
Ms. Silberkleit eventually immigrated to the United States, first moving to Tulsa, Okla., before settling in New York City. She gave birth to three girls: Suzanne, Martine and Michele.
“It was such a miracle to her that she had children and grandchildren,” Martine Singer, 63, said of their mother, adding, “We inherited a sense of injustice and trying to Tikkun Olam,” a Jewish concept that calls for repairing the world. “There’s always somebody out there that you need to fight for, right?”
Once Ms. Singer Reiner identified a wrong in the world, she was tireless.
“Michele had this responsibility from her mother — you do not squander this life,” said Jamie Lee Curtis, the actress and author who was a close friend of Ms. Singer Reiner, her voice shaking. “You make a family and you challenge authoritarians. You answer their horrificness with your passion and your intelligence and your advocacy.”
A Meeting, and Then Quickly, a Marriage
The story of how Ms. Singer Reiner and Mr. Reiner met has been told repeatedly, and it starts with Barry Sonnenfeld. He is the renowned cinematographer and director, and matchmaker. Mr. Reiner came to him in Los Angeles with a question.
“Rob said — ‘What do you think about Michelle Pfeiffer? I think I’m going to ask her for a date,’” Mr. Sonnenfeld recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, you can go on a date with her, but the woman you’re going to marry is also named Michele. Her name is Michele Singer, and I’m going to introduce you when we get to New York.’”
At the time, Ms. Singer lived with her childhood friend, Michele de Milly, near Washington Square Park and was an accomplished photographer. She freelanced for publications including Fortune, and took pictures of many executives, including what she described to friends as a regrettable portrait of Donald J. Trump for his book “The Art of the Deal.”
After an introduction on the set of “When Harry Met Sally…”, Ms. Singer joined a group of people, including Mr. Reiner and Mr. Sonnenfeld, for lunch.
Ms. de Milly, who has known Ms. Singer Reiner since childhood, used a French expression to explain the meeting.
“It was a coup de foudre that happened over a couple of days,” she said.
It means a lightning strike.
The couple would be married in seven months.
Partnership and parenthood
Mr. Reiner and Ms. Singer Reiner formed a partnership at home, on movie and television sets, and in their activism. They sometimes bought two copies of the same book, just so they could read it at the same time.
Together, they raised three children: Jake Reiner, 34; Nick Reiner, 32; and Romy Reiner, 27. Ms. Singer Reiner acted as equal parts mama bear, social planner and glue of the family.
Nicolette Donen, a longtime friend, raised three children at around the same time as Ms. Reiner. They went on big field trips when the children were young, taking all six of them around Los Angeles — to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to Griffith Park, to Disneyland.
The Reiner home was rambunctious and open, and the couple encouraged their children to find their own opinions.
“She really showed me what it is to listen to a child, and to follow their lead, and to let them be,” her sister Martine Singer said. “There was just an ease she had, and an instinctual way of relating.”
They did not shy from facing the difficulties of parenting either, said Maria Shriver, the journalist and former first lady of California who met Ms. Singer Reiner at a Mommy and Me class with their eldest children in the early 1990s.
As an adult, Nick Reiner discussed his battles with heroin and cocaine in interviews. He co-wrote “Being Charlie,” a 2016 film directed by his father about the relationship between an actor turned politician and his drug-addicted son.
“She worked really, really hard all the time on issues, on her marriage, on her family, on the Nicky situation, and also making sure that Romy and Jake were OK, that Rob was OK, that her sisters were OK,” Ms. Shriver added.
Their children never strayed far.
Jake lived about a mile away, Nick lived in their guesthouse, and Romy lived across the street.
‘I Want What They Have’
Ms. Singer Reiner was the force behind much of the couple’s advocacy work, Mr. Reiner said in 2011. He described, while accepting an award from GLSEN, a group that works to protect L.G.B.T.Q. students, how she would prod him.
“Why don’t you do something? You’re a celebrity, you can talk! Get out there and do something!” he recalled her saying.
Together, they were a driving force behind the First 5 initiative in California, which increased a tobacco tax to provide funding for early childhood programs. They co-founded American Foundation for Equal Rights and helped to overturn Proposition 8, California’s gay marriage ban. They championed environmental causes and supported multiple Democratic politicians at the local, state and national level.
Ms. Singer Reiner, in more recent years, turned her attention and her support to those who had been wrongfully incarcerated, working with the Innocence Project and talking to multiple inmates and defendants.
“She had to do something because she could not let go,” said Ms. Donen, the longtime friend and fellow parent of three. She spoke with one Texas inmate in particular, Nanon Williams, on a regular basis. “When she felt something, she could not let go.”
Five years before the Supreme Court would legalize gay marriage in 2015, the legal battle to overturn California’s gay marriage ban was taking place at the federal courthouse in San Francisco. The Reiners were there every day. Their children would often join them.
“They didn’t just hop in and out or swoop in and get the attention — they were just quietly there,” said Kris Perry, a plaintiff in the case that overturned Proposition 8 who became a friend of the Reiner family.
When Ms. Perry took the stand and was asked why she wanted to get married to her partner, Sandy, she looked at the Reiners, who were sitting in the front row.
“I want what they have,” she said.
A Ship Without Its Captain
In the days since her death, in a haze of devastation and logistics, family members and friends have found themselves looking for Ms. Singer Reiner, the usual captain of the ship, to steer them.
They have been overwhelmed — with phone calls, support and food deliveries. Everyone is sending things, and all of it makes the absence of Ms. Singer Reiner feel more pronounced.
“We were saying yesterday, the person who we need right now on this ship is Michele,” Ms. Donen said. “She would be saying, ‘We’ve got to do this, this, this and this.’”
Last Saturday, the day before she was killed, Ms. Singer Reiner called Ms. Curtis’s daughter, Annie. She loved her close friends and she was equally invested in their children. Annie’s birthday was the next day on Sunday: What was she going to do? How was she doing? She was so excited for her.
“You know, that’s Michele,” Ms. Curtis said. “That’s always been Michele.”
Talya Minsberg is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news.
The post A Life Rooted in Activism and Listening to Others appeared first on New York Times.
