The older brother of actor Richard Belzer jumped to his death from the roof of his 16-floor Upper West Side apartment building Wednesday, law enforcement sources said.
Leonard Belzer, 73, had been married to award-winning “Sesame Street” director Emily Squires until she passed away in November 2012.
Multiple suicide notes were found in Belzer’s apartment, law enforcement sources said, though it was not immediately clear what they said or to whom they were addressed.
Belzer, who lived on the 11th floor, jumped at 6:55 a.m. from high atop the West 94th Street building. Belzer’s dad committed suicide in 1968.
Neighbor Terry Caza said Belzer had always been in a good mood and loved talking about movies — until Squires passed away. She was 71.
“After his wife died, he was never quite the same. He never quite recovered,” said Caza, a 56-year-old actor. “He was still friendly after she passed, but he just seemed more subdued.”
Caza added: “He was obviously very affected by his wife’s death.”
Before Squires died, the outgoing and friendly Belzer was open to chat about anything under the sun, from the latest flicks to New York current events.
“He was just the nicest guy,” Caza said. “We’d talk about movies all the time, we’d chat about what was going on. He was always out consuming culture in the city.”
A worker at Belzer’s building, between Broadway and West End Avenue, said the tenant had been hurting, physically and emotionally, in recent years.
“He was in a lot of pain. He was hurting, stomach problems,” the employee said.
“He was also hurting because his wife died a couple years ago. They were beautiful people.”
The worker said he was always struck by the incredible resemblance between Leonard and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” co-star Richard Belzer, 69.
“Side by side you couldn’t tell them apart,” he observed. “They look just alike.”
Another building employee, who works the night shift, recalled that Belzer struggled with heart ailments and had made multiple trips to the ER for health problems.
“He was a nice guy,” the worker said. “He had issues with his heart.”
In a brutally candid 1993 interview with People magazine, Len and Richard opened up about their unhappy childhood in Bridgeport, Conn.
“Our mother didn’t know how to love her sons appropriately,” Len said at the time. “She always had some rationale for hitting us.”
Richard said his comedy was a defense mechanism against their mom’s overly stern hand.
“My kitchen was the toughest room I ever worked. I had to make my mom laugh or I’d get my ass kicked,” Richard said of his mother, who died in 1964.
“I visited her grave nine years ago, and I said, ‘I forgive you,’ but it had no meaning because I didn’t forgive her.”
Len Belzer and Squires together wrote a 2000 book, “Spiritual Places In and Around New York City.”
“`Spiritual Places In and Around New York City’ brings together places that Emily Squires and Len Belzer have found valuable in maintaining their own personal sanity amid the frenetic pace of the city,” according to an Amazon blurb about the book.
“Each sketch lends spiritual insights and a sensual feel of the place that invites readers to plumb for themselves the mystery and depths of its sacredness. Entries on Communities, Day Trips, Gardens, Museums, Learning and Healing Centers, Libraries and Bookstores, Nature Walks, Restaurants, Overnights, as well as Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, and Sufi places of worship.”
Columbia University grad Belzer was an Air Force Intelligence Service veteran and once hosted a syndicated radio show, “The Comedy Hour.”
“He has been a student of spirituality and consciousness for the past 20 years,” according to his author profile.
Additional reporting by David K. Li and Leonard Greene