This week, the USA Network announced they would be airing a marathon to honor the late Law & Order SVU actor, Richard Belzer, according to Deadline. Dubbed the “Munch-a-thon,” the marathon will include ten episodes of the series to which he devoted twenty years of his life. Per Deadline, the marathon will “begin at 4 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, February 26, and run until 1 a.m. In memoriam cards will be attached to each of them.”
News of actor and comedian Richard Belzer’s death was announced on February 19th. Belzer passed away at age 78, presumably to health issues.
Belzer was best known for his role as Detective John Munch on 1993-1999 four-time Emmy-winning crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street, which spawned the hit spinoff series Law & Order: SVU. Via IMDB, the series “follows the Special Victims Unit, a specially trained squad of detectives in the New York City Police Department that investigate sexually related crimes.” Currently, the hit mystery show has won six Emmy awards and boasts twenty-four seasons and over 500 episodes.
The ten episodes that will air are arguably Belzer’s best, starting with “Remorse,” “Legacy,” “Manhunt,” “Parts,” “Uncle,” “Unorthodox,” “True Believers,” “Wonderland Story,” “Spring Awakening,” and ending with his final SVU episode, “Fashionable Crimes.”
In honor of his memory, the most recent SVU episode to air, King of the Moon, directed by Emmy winner Mariska Hargitay (Tales from Earthsea, Lake Placid), who worked with Belzer for twenty seasons on SVU, featured a tribute to Belzer.
According to Screen Rant, Hargitay had this to say about the late actor on The Today Show: “What a heart and soul. He was family and taught me so much about taking risks and creativity and trust, and he brought so much joy to the set. [He] was this acerbic, quick-witted, brilliant mind and yet he would melt in the sight of a child.”
Deadline also reported Law & Order franchise creator and producer Dick Wolf’s (FBI, Chicago Fire) official statement on Belzer’s death: “Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch is one of television’s iconic characters. I first worked with Richard on the Law & Order/Homicide crossover and loved the character so much, I told Tom [Fontana] that I wanted to make him one of the original characters on SVU. The rest is history. Richard brought humor and joy into all our lives, was the consummate professional and we will all miss him very much.”