Richard Belzer Had One Condition To Star In Law And Order: SVU
It's hard to imagine "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" without Richard Belzer's cynical conspiracy theorist and police detective John Munch. He originated the character on David Simon's gritty police detective drama "Homicide: Life on the Street," and when that series was canceled in 1999, Dick Wolf approached Belzer with the opportunity to bring his character to the "Law & Order" universe full-time. But Belzer, an idiosyncratic individual who always did things his own way, had one demand before he would accept the part: That Dean Winters be cast as his partner.
If you don't recognize Dean Winters' name, you'll certainly recognize his performances as Liz Lemon's (Tina Fey) horrible ex Dennis Duffy in "30 Rock" and his even more devilish depiction of mayhem in the long-running Allstate commercials. Winters spoke fondly of his relationship with Belzer in a 2012 interview:
"Richard Belzer and I have serious history," he said. "I met Richard doing Homicide back in '94, and when I came on the show initially 13 years ago, Richard Belzer told Dick Wolf that he would play Munch if I was his partner. So that's how I got on the show, you know. He kind of strong-armed Dick Wolf, if anybody can really strong-arm Dick."
Winters and Belzer bonded on the set of Homicide before they both moved from Baltimore to NYC
Why did Richard Belzer gun so hard for Dean Winters? It turns out that Winters' first acting role ever was on "Homicide" as Tom Marans, a jealous boyfriend who murdered his girlfriend and popped up again several more times throughout the show to pester the detectives. Thanks to Belzer's ultimatum, Winters joined the cast of the brand-new "Law & Order" spin-off as Munch's partner, Detective Brian Cassidy.
Munch and Cassidy were a dynamic duo for the first season of "Law & Order: SVU," but his time on the Special Victims Unit was short-lived due to contractual problems with HBO's groundbreaking prison drama "Oz," in which he played Irish-American prisoner Ryan O'Reily. Winters only appeared in 13 episodes of the show's first season, although he was able to make a triumphant return in season 12, now working undercover for a pimp investigated by the SVU detectives.
Even if his tenure on SVU was brief, Winters plays an important part in TV history by serving as the reason Belzer brought Detective Munch from Baltimore to NYC. Belzer passed away in 2023 at the age of 78, prompting an outpouring of tributes from his "SVU" castmates, but Detective Munch lives on through his seemingly never-ending string of cameos in everything from "Arrested Development" to "The X-Files" and even "Sesame Street."