Rob Reiner revealed how meeting his wife inspired When Harry Met Sally

Rob Reiner recalled in an interview last year how meeting his wife inspired him to change the ending of his iconic film When Harry Met Sally.

It was confirmed on Sunday that the director, 78, and his wife Michele Singer, 68, have been found dead in their Los Angeles home in what police are investigating as a double homicide.

His best friend, the actor Billy Crystal was seen visiting the home 'in tears' in the hours after the discovery.

Billy starred in When Harry Met Sally, with much of his title character's dialogue inspired by his friendship with Reiner, but it was another significant relationship in the director's life that altered the course of the onscreen love story. 

Rob had an illustrious Hollywood career, first making his name as an actor and winning two Emmys for his role on All In The Family, which is also where he met Crystal.  He then moved into directing, with his first feature-length project being This Is Spinal Tap in 1984, followed by Stand By Me and The Princess Bride.

During this time Reiner was perpetually single after his 1981 divorce from actress and director Penny Marshall, and it was his relationship status that inspired him to team-up with writer Nora Ephron for When Harry Met Sally.

Reiner recalled how during a lunch with Ephron he told her about his single life and how he'd had 'disastrous, confusing relationships one after another'. 

'I had been married for ten years, I'd been single for ten years and I couldn't figure out how I was ever going to be with anybody and that gave birth to When Harry Met Sally,' Reiner told CNN's Who's Talking To Chris Wallace in a 2024 interview. 

He was keen to make a film about two people who become friends and do not have sex because they know it will ruin their relationship. Ephron based Harry, and much of the character's dialogue, on both Reiner and his best friend Crystal, who would go onto land the role. 

Both Reiner and Ephron went into the project with a 'true ending' for the movie, which would see Crystal's character and Sally, played by Meg Ryan 'seeing each other after years, talking and then walking away from each other.'

But during filming Reiner met photographer Michele and the movie's happily ever after ending which sees the title characters reunite on New Year's Eve and later marry was born.  

'I met my wife Michelle, who I've been married to now for 35 years, I met her while we were making the film and I changed the ending,' the filmmaker recalled.

Reiner and Singer went on to have a 36 year marriage and shared three children: sons Jake and Nick, and daughter Romy. The photographer and producer owned the Reiner Light photography agency and production house. 

Police confirmed on Sunday night that the bodies of a 78-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman discovered inside the couple's $13.5million Brentwood mansion were those of Reiner and his wife. 

Law enforcement sources said the couple's bodies appeared to have suffered knife wounds.

Their daughter Romy, who lives just across the street, stumbled upon a grim scene inside the sprawling six-bedroom estate, People reports.

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Moment Harry Met Sally star Billy Crystal wipes tears outside the home of friend Rob Reiner

A Reiner family spokesman confirmed the deaths, saying: 'It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,' they said. 'We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.'

Los Angeles Police Department detectives say the deaths are being investigated as homicides, and a heavy police presence was at the home on Sunday evening. 

A neighbor told ABC7 that Billy Crystal visited the crime scene, and the actor allegedly 'looked like he was about to cry' before he left.

Reiner and Crystal had a decades-long friendship with Reiner as they first met on set of classic sitcom All In The Family in 1975 when the two were cast as best friends.

Crystal had written a column for The Hollywood Reporter back in September 2016 about their friendship as he said that their chemistry on screen was so palpable that they decided to be friends away from the camera.

Crystal wrote: 'It worked really well, and we said, "It feels right onstage, why don’t we just continue this in our lives?" 

'We became the closest of friends. And when I moved out here, we just spent all kinds of time together.'

Crystal previously said that one of his favorite moments in their friendship was at the first screening of When Harry Met Sally.

He wrote in the THR column: 'Rob and I were sitting in the back next to each other. Then the orgasm scene happens, and the place goes berserk. When Rob’s mother, Estelle, says, “I’ll have what she’s having,” it was thunderous, a laugh you can only hear with the best of jokes in a concert hall. 

'It’s those moments that make movies so spectacular: You set up the joke in September, and you don’t hear the punch line until May. We just grabbed each other’s hands because we knew something exciting was about to happen with this movie.'