According to Deadline, Law & Order: SVU actor Richard Belzer has passed away at 78. The news was announced by his Saturday Night Live costar and friend, Emmy nominee Laraine Newman (Coneheads, Problem Child 2), on Twitter.
Via The Hollywood Reporter, “Belzer died early Sunday at his home in Bozouls in southwest France, [said] writer Bill Scheft, a longtime friend of the actor, ‘He had lots of health issues, and his last words were, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker.'”
Belzer rose to fame in the 1993 four-time Emmy-winning series Homicide: Life on the Street; he appeared in 122 episodes. His other best-known credits are The X-Files, The Beat, Arrested Development, Scarface, The Wire, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Belzer also served as the warm-up comedian on Saturday Night Live during the 1970s.
Belzer departed from the Law & Order franchise in 2014 after over twenty years of playing Detective John Munch, a cynical conspiracy theorist; he starred in total of 326 episodes. In 2016, he returned for an episode called “Fashionable Crimes.” That same year, Belzer also released a book titled Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination. His most recent work was Corporate Conspiracies: How Wall Street Took Over Washington, published in 2017.
Following his death, several of Belzer’s friends have posted tributes in his honor.