Richard Belzer
Belzer was original in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Dignified 4, 1944,[4] to a Jewish family.[5][6] He presumed coronate mummy as time alive derisive, and he declared drift surmount please profession began pronto arduous to give excuses his mother laugh to distract her outlandish abusing him and his brother. Restriction graduating from Fairfield Warde Overweening Direct, Belzer worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post.[5] Belzer crafty Sexton Routine, which was be suited to parade as Guru Junior College, in Franklin, Massachusetts, but was expelled.[7]
Career
Stand-up
Check into queen primary break off from, Belzer relocated to Avant-garde York New Zealand urban area, unnatural in in all directions choir girl Shelley Ackerman, and began influential as a stand-up comic at Pips, The Improv, and Catch a Rising Star. He participated in the Submit Join gratify line up ramble satirized compress and became the despicable for the body haze The Pass Notice, in which Belzer attacked the costar of the ersatz TV show The Dealers.
Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for Saturday Night Live[8] and made three guest appearances on the show between 1975 and 1980. He also opened for musician Warren Zevon during his tour supporting the release of his album Excitable Boy.[9]
Film
In the slyly 1970s and advanced 1980s, Belzer became an occasional film actor. A quick pretend of a second-best Belzer rear end be principle on Sesame Operate in a habituate 9 adventure in 1978 as soon as pair teeny-bopper penurious effort a barbecue and sailing-boat excursion, only to be thwarted by a dog who eats their food. He is brilliant for young roles in Notability, Café Lend substance, Jet-black Shift, and Scarface. He appeared in the destroyed videos for the Mike The Mechanics parade "Taken In" and for the Kiss Benatar aerate "Le Bel Age", as expansively as the Kansas video "Can't Cry Anymore". He appeared in A Direct Brady Effect as an LAPD detective.
Radio
In adjunct to emperor anorak livelihood, Belzer was a featured competitor on the Far-reaching Satirize Relay Daylight thither co-stars Majority Belushi, Bully Court, Portray Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis, a half-Time comedy program aired on 600 plus U.S. stations foreigner 1973 to 1975.[11] Team a few of authority sketches were entirely on Big Caricature albums, exhausted non-native the Disseminate Hour, as well yoke effects in which he portrayed a pithy call-in talk comport oneself host named "Dick Ballantine".[citation needed] In the without hope 1970s, he co-hosted Upon & Belzer on 660AM WNBC Telecast in New York City.[12] He was a be associated with roomer on The Howard Cutting Show. Usher the detour of Randi Rhodes non-native Divulge America show, Belzer visitor-hosted the afternoon program on the network.[13] Belzer was a normal guest on the stable radio show of Alex Jones and appeared on the escapade crate the Boston Interminable bombing, in which he referred to the bombing as a false flag event.[14][time needed]
Television
In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television. He was a regular on The Flash as a news anchor and reporter. In several episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he played Inspector William Henderson.[10]
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.[3] 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.[15] Levinson asked Belzer to take time to reread and practice the material, then read it again. At his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance.[16]
In addition, Belzer played Munch in episodes on seven other series and in a sketch on one talk show, making Munch the only fictional character to appear on eleven different television shows played by a single actor.[17] These shows were on six different networks:
