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Richard Belzer
Birth name	Richard Belzer
Born	August 4, 1944 (age 62) Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
Other name(s)	The Belz
Spouse(s)	Harlee McBride (1985 - present) Dalia Danoch (1976 - 1978) (divorced) Gail Susan Ross (1966 - 1972) (divorced)
Notable roles	Det. John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street (1993 - 1999) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 - present)

Richard Belzer (born August 4, 1944 in Bridgeport, Connecticut) is an American stand up comedian, writer and actor.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and education 1.2 Early career 1.3 Stand-up comic 1.4 Film acting 1.5 Marriages 1.6 Hulk Hogan Incident 1.7 Television 2 Books By Richard Belzer 3 Trivia 4 Quotes 5 External links

Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he grew up with his parents and older brother. His mother was neglectful and physically abusive, but his father worked hard to move his family out of the poverty of the projects and into a better life. Richard worked as a paperboy and became known for his strong personality, which "caused him to be kicked out of every school he attended". Nonetheless, Belzer attended and graduated from Andrew Warde High School in the neighboring town of Fairfield, Connecticut.

After high school, he worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post. He attended Dean Junior College in Franklin, MA for a year and a part of a semester before being asked to leave for leading too many student demonstrations. According to one interview, he was majoring in Physical Education. After leaving college, Belzer was encouraged by his father to enlist in the Army.

He soon realized he was unsuitable for the military and tried to get out, and eventually he was successful at terminating his enlistment early. After the Army, Belzer moved to New York City and began working as a stand-up comic. He participated in the Channel One comedy group that satirized television and became the basis for the cult movie The Groove Tube.

Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for Saturday Night Live in its premiere season and made three guest appearances on the show in 1976 and 1978. (However, despite appearing as such in the film Man on the Moon, Belzer was not the first host of the show.)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Belzer became an occasional film actor. He is noted for his small roles in Fame, Night Shift, and Scarface. He also was a player on the National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program aired on some 600 U. S. stations from 1973 to 1975. 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 Valentine. In the late 1970s he co-hosted Brink & Belzer on 660AM WNBC (New York City).

Richard Belzer survived testicular cancer in 1984, his HBO special and comedy CD Another Lone Nut [1] pokes fun at this, as well as his status as a well-known "Conspiracy Theorist".

Belzer married actress Harlee McBride in 1985. His previous marriages were with Gail Susan Ross (1966-1972) and Dalia Danoch (1976-1978).

In 1985 on his cable TV talk show Hot Properties, Belzer said wrestling was fake and insisted Hulk Hogan put a wrestling move on him. Hulk Hogan put Belzer in a front chin lock or sleeper hold, which caused Belzer to pass out. When Hogan released him, Belzer hit his head on the floor, sustaining a laceration to his scalp which required him to be hospitalized briefly. Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million, and it was later settled out of court. Belzer used the settlement (rumored to be $1.5 million) to purchase a cottage in France, where he and his wife Harlee live when he's not working in the U. S. On October 20, 2006 on the Bubba the Love Sponge show it was claimed (with Hogan live on the phone) that the settlement totalled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon.

In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television, including a movie role in which he appeared as an LAPD detective in A Very Brady Sequel. He was a regular on The Flash television show. In several episodes of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he played Inspector William Henderson. He followed that success with starring roles on Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 - ), playing the same character (Detective John Munch) in both series.

In addition, he has also played Detective John Munch in episodes of six other series:

• Law & Order - 4 episodes: "Charm City Part 1", "Baby, It's You", "Sideshow" and "Entitled Part 2".
• The X-Files - 1 episode: "Unusual Suspects"
• The Beat - 1 episode: "They Say It's Your Birthday"
• Law & Order: Trial by Jury - 1 episode: "Skeleton (2)"
  • 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 in Cheers (1982-1993), St. Elsewhere (1985), The Tortellis (1987), Wings (1990), The Simpsons (1994) and Frasier (2002).
• Arrested Development - 1 episode: "Exit Strategy" (Belzer also appeared in episode "S.O.B.s", but as himself.)
  • His appearance in "Exit Strategy" marked the first time an actor had ever played the same character in 7 different prime time series.
  • Although Belzer did not play the role, a Muppet caricature of Munch appeared on Sesame Street. In an episode which aired August 14, 2006, Muppet performer Joey Mazzarino imitated Belzer's portrayal in a "Law & Order: Special Letters Unit" spoof, and the character was still called Munch. Apart from this, Munch has been the only fictional character played by a single actor to appear on seven different television shows. These shows were on three different networks: NBC (Homicide: Life on the Street, the Law & Order shows), and FOX (The X-Files, Arrested Development), UPN (The Beat).

He also appeared in Comedy Central's broadcast of the Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase.

Belzer was honored by the New York Friars Club and the Toyota Comedy Festival June 9, 2001 as the honoree of the first ever roast that was open to the public. Comedians and friends on the dais included Roast master 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.

• UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Believe, ISBN 0-345-42918-4
• How to Be a Stand-Up Comic, ISBN 0-394-56239-9
• Momentum: The Struggle for Peace, Politics, and the People (By Belzer and Marjorie Mowlam), ISBN 0-340-79394-5

• Belzer's wife Harlee McBride made 2 soft porn movies Young Lady Chatterley (1977)[2] and Young Lady Chatterley II (1985)[3]. She also had a recurring role in Homicide: Life on the Street as Alyssa Dryer
• He has appeared in episodes of four different series with Sam Waterston: Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
• His trademark is that he often appears wearing sunglasses, even indoors.
• Suffers from a rare degenerative eye disease that renders him extremely photosensitive, hence the constant wearing of sunglasses.
• Richard Belzer testified on behalf of a criminal who was running from actual Baltimore police and ran onto the set of Homicide: Life on the Street. The criminal surrendered to the actors. Belzer said the look on the man's face was adequate punishment.
• Former jobs include teacher, census-taker, jewelry salesman and dockworker.
• He is a noted conspiracy theorist, as is his character in the Law & Order Franchise.
• Fellow SVU star Mariska Hargitay mentioned on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, that Belzer occasionally gets rides to work by NYPD police officers.
• Richard Belzer voiced a character "Loogie" for an episode in South Park's 4th season. Loogie, a young mafia boss who ran a multi-city empire which generated revenues by placing teeth under unsuspecting children's pillows and then returning later for the cash.
• Is the cousin of Henry Winkler

• On the military (From appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time): "No one is questioning the nobility and honor of these men and women that are serving and what they're doing. No one questions that. Now they're targets and they're not going out, they're just protecting each other and they're in the middle of a civil war. So it's really not fair to have these people, who volunteered their lives to protect our nation under false pretenses, to now be targets"
• "They're 19- and 20-year-old kids who couldn't get a job...the soldiers are not scholars, they're not war experts."
• On an appearance by Ann Coulter on Bill Maher's Real Time: "She is a Fascist party doll."
• During the Friar's Club 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."
• When appearing on The View: "How you bitches doin'?"

• Richard Belzer at the Internet Movie Database
• NBC Biography
• Video Clip - Hulk Hogan & Richard Belzer Incident on Hot Properties
• Video Clip - Part of appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time