- - Rob Reiner's Reflections on the Moment He Got 'Validation' as a Creative from Dad Carl Reiner: 'That Was a Big Deal'

Angela AndaloroDecember 17, 2025 at 6:24 AM

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Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection

Rob Reiner and Carl Reiner in 1989 -

Rob Reiner appeared on Ted Danson's podcast just three months before he was murdered in his Brentwood home

During the chat, the two talents discussed Carl Reiner's legacy in entertainment and Rob's decision to enter the same industry

Carl died on June 29, 2020, of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills at age 98

Rob Reiner was proud to have earned his dad's respect as a creative.

In a poignant conversation taped just months before Rob's murder, the son of legendary comedian Carl Reiner opened up about making his own way, first as an actor and later as a director.

He shared his experience in Sept., while speaking with Ted Danson on his podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name.

Danson discussed his admiration for Dick Van Dyke, recalling how The Dick Van Dyke Show was the first thing he ever watched after he got his first TV.

"Yeah. Well, I've told this story, but my father was on television before we owned a television," Rob shared.

"We bought a television so we could look at him on Saturday night when he was on with Sid Caesar. That was the world I grew up in."

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CBS via Getty

Carl and Rob Reiner in 1965

As the conversation continued, Danson asked when the Stand By Me filmmaker first realized he wanted to get into entertainment.

"My folks told me this story, I don't remember doing it, but they said that one day I came to them, I was eight years old at the time, and I said to them, 'I want to change my name,' " Rob shared.

"And they thought, 'Oh, this poor kid. He's worried about being in the shadow and having to live up to his father and all this.' So they asked me, they said, 'Well, what do you want to change your name to?' And I said, 'Carl,'" he laughed.

"And so obviously I looked up to him. I thought he was the greatest. I mean, he is, he was," he said of Carl, who died in 2020.

"He was a genius and he was brilliant and he had so, you know, the Van Dyke Show is to me still one of the best sitcoms ever made, and it was groundbreaking at the time, so I wanted to be him," the proud son said.

Charley Gallay/Getty Rob Reiner and Carl Reiner

Rob remembered spending his summers at the Desilu Studios, where The Dick Van Dyke Show filmed, and spending his days there watching the different aspects of production unfold.

"I'd watch how he worked with the actors and rewriting and all, and how they positioned the cameras and everything. It was like school for me. I think I was probably a pain in the to him because who wants... it was like 'bring your kid to work' day, every day," he said, noting he was in high school at the time.

Danson asked Rob about his understanding that Carl wasn't "overly complimentary" about his son's career, which prompted the director to remember when he first started feeling like he'd earned his father's respect as a creative peer.

"I was in a play in summer theater when I was 18 years old, and they did a production of Enter Laughing, which is based on his book. It was a play that Joe Stein wrote based on it. And I got good reviews and people seemed to like it, but he thought, 'Uh-oh.' And he didn't ever say anything that, you know, but you could ... I found out later from Martin Landau, who was a good friend, he said, 'Your father always thought, "I don't know what to say to this kid. I don't know if he wants to do this, and I don't know if he can do it.' "

When Carl directed the film of Enter Laughing a year later, Rob auditioned for a part. Carl passed.

"I auditioned for him and he said, 'No,' and I thought, 'Oh my goodness.' There's no bigger rejection from your father to say, 'You can't do it,' " he recalled.

"So then time goes by, and then I'm 19, and I direct a production of No Exit, of all things, a Jean-Paul Sartre play, and Richard Dreyfuss was in that production. It was in the theater here in Los Angeles. And my father came to it, and he came backstage afterwards and he looked me in the eye and he said, 'That was good. No bulls---,' just like that."

He continued, "It's the first time I ever heard validation like that. And then I went and visited him the next day at his house, and we're sitting in the backyard, and he says, 'I'm not worried about you. You're going to be okay. Whatever you decide to do, you're going to do it good.' And that was a big deal."

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”