Martin Scorsese is remembering his late friends Rob and Michele Reiner. The 83-year-old filmmaker penned an emotional essay published in The New York Times on Thursday following the couple's tragic murders earlier this month, which brought him "such profound sadness." He began by writing: "Rob Reiner was my friend, and so was Michele. From now on, I'll have to use the past tense, and that fills me with such profound sadness. But there's no other choice." Related: Police Were Called To Rob & Michele's Home SIX Times Before Murders! Martin recalled the first time meeting Rob. According to the filmmaker, shortly after moving to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, he started attending stand-up comedy salons at George Memmoli's home, and that is where he met Rob: "Rob and I were both Eastern transplants, in a way. He and his family had moved to Los Angeles when he was young, but he was born in the Bronx and lived in New Rochelle as a child. Rob came from New York show business royalty. His mother, Estelle, was a wonderful singer and actress, and his father, Carl, came out of Sid Caesar's 'Your Show of Shows' alongside Neil Simon and Mel Brooks, who later became his partner with the brilliant '2000 Year Old Man' routine. This was 100 percent New York humor, and it was in the air I breathed." And they connected instantly. Martin shared: "Right away, I loved hanging out with Rob. We had a natural affinity for each other. He was hilarious and sometimes bitingly funny, but he was never the kind of guy who would take over the room. He had a beautiful sense of uninhibited freedom, fully enjoying the life of the moment, and he had a great barreling laugh. When they honored him at Lincoln Center, Michael McKean did a bit, which was a brilliant parody of solemn official tribute speeches. Before he got to the punchline, Rob laughed so hard you could hear it throughout the auditorium." According to Martin, the pair remained in touch for years - and watched each other's movies. His favorite film directed by Rob is Misery, calling it "a very special film, beautifully acted by Kathy Bates and James Caan." The Goodfellas director also feels This Is Spinal Tap is "in a class of its own ... an immaculate creation." That's such high praise from him. While working on his 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin knew exactly who to call - Rob. He said he "immediately thought of" the 78-year-old actor to play the father of Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort, adding: "He could improvise with the best, he was a master at comedy, he worked beautifully with Leo and the rest of the guys, and he understood the human predicament of his character: The man loved his son, he was happy with his success, but he knew that he was destined for a fall. There's that wonderful moment where Rob watches as Jon Favreau explains to Leo that he can get out relatively unscathed if he just walks away from his company before the S.E.C. has a chance to charge him with violations. The look on Rob's face, as he realizes that Leo is hesitating and that he ultimately won't stop, is so eloquent. 'You got all the money in the world,' he says. 'You need everybody else's money?' A loving father, mystified by his son." Martin expressed he "was moved by the delicacy and openness of his performance when we shot it, moved once again as we brought the scene together in the edit and moved as I watched the finished picture." But now, he revealed, it only "breaks my heart to even think of the tenderness of Rob's performance in this and other scenes." Oof... How Rob and Michele died, allegedly at the hands of their own son Nick Reiner, is even more heartbreaking. Martin concluded: "What happened to Rob and Michele is an obscenity, an abyss in lived reality. The only thing that will help me to accept it is the passing of time. So, like all of their loved ones and their friends - and these were people with many, many friends - I have to be allowed to imagine them alive and well ... and that one day, I'll be at a dinner or a party and find myself seated next to Rob, and I'll hear his laugh and see his beatific face and laugh at his stories and relish his natural comic timing, and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend." What a touching tribute to his dear pals. Read the entire essay by Martin HERE. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Share them in the comments (below). [Image via Joseph Marzullo/MEGA/WENN] The post Martin Scorsese Mourns Rob & Michele Reiner After Shocking Murders: 'What Happened To Them Is An Obscenity, An Abyss In Lived Reality' appeared first on Perez Hilton.