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Richard Belzer Trivia | 77 facts about the late actor

Richard Belzer was an American actor, stand-up comedian, and author. He died on February 19th 2023.

So let’s find out some trivia about his life and career.

  1. His full name was Richard Jay Belzer
  2. He was born on August 4, 1944
  3. He died on February 19, 2023
  4. Richard Belzer was an American actor, stand-up comedian, and author
  5. He was best known for his role as BPD Detective, NYPD Detective/Sergeant, and DA Investigator John Munch
  6. For whom he portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
  7. As well as in guest appearances on several other series
  8. He portrayed the character for 23 years, from 1993 until retiring in 2016
  9. Belzer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 4, 1944, to a Jewish family
  10. He described his mother as frequently physically abusive
  11. He declared that his comedy career began when trying to make his mother laugh to distract her from abusing him and his brother
  12. After graduating from Fairfield Warde High School, Belzer worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post
  13. Belzer attended Dean College, which was then known as Dean Junior College, in Franklin, Massachusetts
  14. He was expelled
  15. 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
  16. He participated in the Channel One comedy group that satirized television and became the basis for the cult movie The Groove Tube
  17. In the series Belzer played the costar of the ersatz TV show The Dealers
  18. Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for Saturday Night Live
  19. He made three guest appearances on the show between 1975 and 1980
  20. He also opened for musician Warren Zevon during his tour supporting the release of his album Excitable Boy
  21. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Belzer became an occasional film actor
  22. A short skit of a younger Richard Belzer can be found on Sesame Street in a season 9 episode in 1978 when two young men attempt a picnic and boat ride, only to be thwarted by a dog who eats their food
  23. He is noted for small roles in Fame, Café Flesh, Night Shift, and Scarface
  24. He appeared in the music videos for the Mike + The Mechanics song “Taken In” and for the Pat Benatar song “Le Bel Age”
  25. As well as the Kansas video “Can’t Cry Anymore”
  26. He appeared in A Very Brady Sequel as an LAPD detective
  27. 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
  28. It was a half-hour comedy program aired on 600 plus U.S. stations from 1973 to 1975
  29. 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 Ballantine”
  30. In the late 1970s, he co-hosted Brink & Belzer on 660AM WNBC radio in New York City
  31. He was a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show
  32. Following the departure of Randi Rhodes from Air America Radio, Belzer guest-hosted the afternoon program on the network
  33. Belzer was a regular guest on the right-wing radio show of Alex Jones and appeared on the episode covering the Boston Marathon bombing, in which he referred to the bombing as a false flag event
  34. In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television
  35. He was a regular on The Flash as a news anchor and reporter
  36. In several episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he played Inspector William Henderson
  37. He followed that with starring roles on the Baltimore-based Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) and the New York City-based Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–2013), portraying police detective John Munch in both series
  38. Barry Levinson, Executive Producer of Homicide, said Belzer was a “lousy actor” in audition when he read lines from the script for “Gone for Goode”, the first episode in the series
  39. Levinson asked Belzer to take time to reread and practice the material, then read it again
  40. At his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was “still terrible”, but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance.
  41. In addition, Belzer played Munch in episodes on seven other series and in a sketch on one talk show
  42. Mmaking Munch the only fictional character to appear on eleven different television shows played by a single actor
  43. In March 2016, executive producer Warren Leight announced Belzer would return to reprise the role in a May 2016 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, titled “Fashionable Crimes”.[20]
  44. Belzer portrayed Det. Munch for 22 consecutive seasons on Homicide (7 seasons) and Law & Order: SVU (15 seasons)
  45. This exceeded the previous primetime live-action record of twenty consecutive seasons held by James Arness (who portrayed Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1975) and Kelsey Grammer (as Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier from 1984 to 2004)
  46. This record has since been passed by Belzer’s “SVU” co-star Mariska Hargitay
  47. Belzer appeared in several of Comedy Central’s televised broadcasts of Friars Club roasts
  48. On June 9, 2001, Belzer himself was honored by the New York Friars Club and the Toyota Comedy Festival as the honoree of the first-ever roast open to the public
  49. 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
  50. At the December 1, 2002, roast of Chevy Chase, Belzer said, “The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass”
  51. Belzer voiced the character of Loogie for most of the South Park episode titled “The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000”
  52. He and Brian Doyle-Murray were featured in the tenth-season premiere of Sesame Street
  53. Belzer believed there was a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy
  54. He wrote five books discussing conspiracy theories
  55. Dead Wrong and Hit List were written with journalist David Wayne and reached The New York Times Best Seller list
  56. Someone Is Hiding Something was also written with David Wayne as well as radio talk show host George Noory
  57. Belzer’s long-time character, John Munch, was also a believer in conspiracy theories, including the JFK assassination
  58. In 2008, Belzer published a novel, I Am Not a Cop!, about a fictional version of himself investigating a murder
  59. Belzer’s first two marriages were to Gail Susan Ross (1966–72) and boutique manager Dalia Danoch (1976 – c. 1978), both of which ended in divorce
  60. In 1981 in Los Angeles he met 31-year-old Harlee McBride, a divorcee with two daughters,[33] Bree Benton and Jessica
  61. McBride, who had been seen in Playboy magazine four years earlier in that year’s sex-in-cinema feature, in conjunction with Young Lady Chatterley
  62. She was appearing in TV commercials for Ford and acting in free theater when she met Belzer at the suggestion of a friend
  63. The two married in 1985
  64. Belzer survived testicular cancer in 1983
  65. His HBO special and comedy CD Another Lone Nut pokes fun at this medical incident as well as his status as a well-known conspiracy theorist
  66. 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
  67. After being asked by Belzer several times, Hogan put Belzer in a front chin-lock, which caused Belzer to pass out
  68. When Hogan released him, Belzer hit his head on the floor, sustaining a laceration to the scalp that required a brief hospitalization
  69. Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and settled out of court for $400,000 in 1990
  70. He used the incident in his HBO special Another Lone Nut as part of his stand-up routine, and used the settlement to help pay for a home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France
  71. He and his wife variously dubbed “Chez Hogan” and the “Hulk Hogan Estate”
  72. The couple also had a home in Bozouls
  73. Belzer’s older brother, Leonard Belzer, died by suicide at age 73 on July 30, 2014, by jumping from the roof of the New York City luxury apartment building in which he had resided
  74. Belzer’s father had also died by suicide, in 1968
  75. Belzer died at his home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer on February 19, 2023, at age 78
  76. He died from complications of unspecified circulatory and respiratory conditions
  77. According to his friend Bill Scheft, a novelist, Belzer’s last words were “Fuck you, motherfucker”
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Costas Despotakis

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