I think I watched Richard Belzer‘s performance as Detective John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street (’93 to ’99) and the Manhattan-based Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (’99 to ’13), but for some reason I can’t recall any takeaways. What this probably means, in all fairness, is that I didn’t find Munch an especially rich or compelling character. Amusing, yes, but in a sidelight fashion. Mainly he struck me as compulsive.
Mine is a minority view, I realize. N.Y. Times/Jason Zinoman: “As Detective Munch, Mr. Belzer was brainy but hard-boiled, cynical but sensitive. He wore sunglasses at night and listened to the horror stories of rape victims in stony silence. He was the kind of cop who made casual references to Friedrich Nietzsche and the novelist Elmore Leonard. He spoke in quips; when accused of being a dirty old man, he responded: ‘Who are you calling old?’
I recognize that Belzer, who passed yesterday (Sunday, 2.19) at his home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, was a funny, witty, ascerbic guy who was highly skilled at stand-up comedy. I loved his comedy-club patter in Mad Dog and Glory (’93) when he introduced Bill Murray‘s character — “Ladies and gentlemen, from Highland Park, the land of velour seat covers and razor-cut hair, the comedy stylings of Frank Milo…dig it.” (He also played the emcee at the fabled Babylon Club in Brian De Palma‘s Scarface.)
For years I had an idea that Belzer owned a home on Huntley Drive in West Hollywood, a couple of blocks from my place and just down the slope from Santa Monica Blvd. I tried verifying this a few hours ago from the usual online sources, but it wasn’t there. This impression is therefore probably wrong. But there’s a pocket in my memory that insists otherwise.