Richard Belzer, an entertainer referred to for his job as Investigator John Crunch on “Regulation and Request,” has died at 78 years old.
“He passed at home early earlier today in the south of France — in his home in the south of France — with his family around him,” essayist Bill Scheft, a long-term companion of the entertainer, affirmed to Fox News Computerized.
“He had lots of health issues, and his last words were, Scheft, a former writer for “Late Show with David Letterman,” told The Hollywood Reporter of Belzer.
Belzer was famed for his role as Detective Munch, first appearing on NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” from 1993 to 1999. He reprised that role in the TV movie “Homicide: The Movie” in 2000 and also appeared as the famed detective in four episodes of “Law & Order.”
Belzer appeared as Munch again in “Law & Order: SVU,” where he became a series regular, appearing in 326 episodes between 1999 and 2016. Though his character retired in 2013, he returned in two additional episodes after his departure.
Like Belzer himself, detective Munch had a conspiratorial mindset, a Jewish background and a dry sense of humor. His scrawny, wisecracking, glasses-wearing investigator became over time one of the most recognizable cops in TV crime show history.
“I could never be a criminal investigator, yet assuming I were, that is the way I’d be,” he said in a new meeting with The Boomer Cylinder.
“The person is exceptionally near how I would be. They keep in touch with all my distrustfulness and rebellious dissidence and paranoid notions, so it’s been loads of good times for me. It’s been a fantasy as a matter of fact.”
Throughout his profession, Belzer depicted an investigator in 11 TV series, including “The Wire” and “The X-Records.” He made hybrid appearances in-character in the comedies “30 Stone,” “Captured Improvement” and “Solid Kimmy Schmidt,” and his criminal investigator Chomp was even transformed into a muppet in the “Sesame Road” drama “Exceptional Letters Unit.”
In an explanation presented on the Twitter represent Wolf Diversion, “Regulation and Request” maker Dick Wolf said Belzer’s Chomp character was “one of TV’s famous characters.”
“I originally worked with Richard on the ‘Law and Request’/’Manslaughter’ hybrid and cherished the person to such an extent.
I told Tom (Fontana) that I needed to make him one of the first characters on ‘SVU.’ The rest is history,” Wolf said. “Richard gave humor and pleasure into for our entire lives, was the quintessential expert, and we will all miss him without a doubt.”
His associates, among them Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay, offered recognition of their co-star.
“Farewell my dear, dear companion,” Hargitay composed on Instagram. “I will miss you, your novel light, and your particular interpretation of this weird world. I feel honored to have known you and loved you and worked with you, one next to the other, for such countless years.”