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
. He participated in the Channel One comedy group that satirized television and became the basis for the cult movie
The Groove Tube
,
in which Belzer played the co-star of the
ersatz
TV show
The Dealers
.
Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for
Saturday Night Live
[9]
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
.
[10]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Belzer became an occasional film actor. A short skit of a younger 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. He is noted for minor roles in
Fame
,
Cafe Flesh
,
Night Shift
,
Scarface
, “Girl 6”, and
Fletch Lives
. He appeared in the
music videos
for the
Mike + The Mechanics
song "
Taken In
", the
Pat Benatar
song "Le Bel Age", and the
Kansas
song "Can't Cry Anymore" all of which were made by Flattery Yukich Inc (Producer Paul Flattery and Director Jim Yukich). He appeared in
A Very Brady Sequel
as an
LAPD
detective.
[11]
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
, a half-hour comedy program aired on 600 plus U.S. stations from 1973 to 1975.
[12]
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".
[
citation needed
]
In the late 1970s, he co-hosted
Brink & Belzer
on
WNBC
radio (660?AM) in New York City.
[13]
He was a frequent guest on
The Howard Stern Show
. Following the departure of
Randi Rhodes
from
Air America Radio
, Belzer guest-hosted the afternoon program on the network.
[14]
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.
[15]
[
time?needed
]
In the 1980s, Belzer was a regular on
Alan Thicke
's short-lived show
Thicke of the Night
. He also briefly starred in
The Richard Belzer Show
on
Cinemax
,
[16]
and hosted the
Lifetime
cable TV talk show,
Hot Properties.
[11]
By the 1990s, he was appearing 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
.
[11]
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.
[4]
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.
[17]
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.
[18]
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 11 different television shows played by a single actor.
[19]
These shows were on six different networks:
- Homicide: Life on the Street
(
NBC
)
- Law & Order
(NBC)
- The X-Files
(
Fox
)
- The Beat
(
UPN
)
- Law & Order: Trial by Jury
(NBC)
- Belzer's appearance on
Trial by Jury
, which aired April 15, 2005, made him the third actor ever to play the same character in six different prime-time TV series. The other two actors are
John Ratzenberger
and
George Wendt
, who played
Cliff Clavin
and
Norm Peterson
, respectively, in
Cheers
(1982?93),
St. Elsewhere
(1985),
The Tortellis
(1987),
Wings
(1990),
The Simpsons
(1994), and
Frasier
(2002).
- Arrested Development
(Fox)
- The Wire
(
HBO
)
- 30 Rock
[4]
(NBC)
- The characters are watching a
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
episode; a scene shot for
30 Rock
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
(NBC)
- Jimmy Kimmel Live!
(
ABC
)
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
(
Netflix
), in which he played a John Munch-like character on a fictional
Law & Order
spin-off.
[20]
[21]
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".
[22]
Belzer portrayed Det. Munch for 22 consecutive seasons on
Homicide
(7 seasons) and
Law & Order: SVU
(15 seasons), which 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). This record has since been passed by Belzer's
SVU
co-stars Mariska Hargitay and
Ice-T
.
Belzer appeared in several of
Comedy Central
's televised broadcasts of
Friars' Club
roasts. 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. Comedians and friends on the dais included Roastmaster
Paul Shaffer
;
Christopher Walken
;
Danny Aiello
;
Barry Levinson
;
Robert Klein
;
Bill Maher
;
SVU
co-stars
Mariska Hargitay
,
Christopher Meloni
,
Ice-T
, and
Dann Florek
; and
Law & Order
's
Jerry Orbach
. 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."
[23]
Belzer voiced the character of Loogie for most of the
South Park
episode titled "
The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000
".
[24]
He and
Brian Doyle-Murray
were featured in the tenth-season premiere of
Sesame Street
.
[25]
Belzer believed there was a
conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy
[26]
and wrote five books discussing
conspiracy theories
:
- UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe
(2000)
[27]
- Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups
[28]
- Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination
[29]
- Corporate Conspiracies: How Wall Street Took Over Washington
[30]
- Someone Is Hiding Something: What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
[31]
Dead Wrong
and
Hit List
were written with journalist David Wayne and reached
The New York Times
Best Seller list
.
[31]
Someone Is Hiding Something
was also written with David Wayne as well as radio talk show host
George Noory
.
[32]
Belzer's long-time character, John Munch, was also a believer in conspiracy theories, including the JFK assassination. In 2008, Belzer published a novel,
I Am Not a Cop!
, about a fictional version of himself investigating a murder.
[1]
Belzer's first two marriages were to Gail Susan Ross (1966?1972)
[33]
and boutique manager Dalia Danoch (1976 ? c. 1978),
[33]
both of which ended in divorce. In 1981, in Los Angeles, he met 32-year-old
Harlee McBride
, a divorcee with two daughters,
[34]
Bree Benton and Jessica.
[35]
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
,
[36]
was appearing in
TV commercials
for
Ford
and acting in free theater when she met Belzer at the suggestion of a friend.
[34]
The two married in 1985
[33]
and had a home in
Bozouls
, France.
[1]
Belzer survived
testicular cancer
in 1983.
[34]
His 1997
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
.
On March 27, 1985, four days before the
first WrestleMania
, Belzer repeatedly requested on his TV talk show
Hot Properties
that professional wrestler
Hulk Hogan
demonstrate a wrestling move. Hogan applied a front facelock, which caused Belzer to pass out, and he hit the back of his head on the floor when released.
[37]
After waking up, Belzer was dazed, lacerated and briefly hospitalized.
[38]
He later
sued Hogan for $5 million
and settled out of court for $400,000 in 1990.
[1]
Belzer refers to the settlement in his 1997 HBO stand-up special
Another Lone Nut
, revealing it helped him pay for a home in
Beaulieu-sur-Mer
called the "Chez Hogan" or "Hulk Hogan Estate".
[1]
[39]
Belzer's father and brother both died of suicide, in 1968 and 2014, respectively.
[6]
His cousin is actor
Henry Winkler
.
[40]