Michael Moriarty

For other people named Michael Moriarty, see Michael Moriarty (disambiguation).

Michael Moriarty
Born	(1941-04-05) April 5, 1941 Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Education	University of Detroit Jesuit H.S.
Alma mater	Dartmouth College (BA) London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1971–present
Awards	Tony Award (1974) Golden Globe Award (1979) Emmy Award (1974, 1978, 2002)

Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust and a Tony Award in 1974 for his performance in the play Find Your Way Home. He played Executive Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Stone for the first four seasons (1990–1994) of the television show Law & Order. Moriarty is also known for his roles in films such as Bang the Drum Slowly, Who'll Stop the Rain, Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, Pale Rider, Troll, Courage Under Fire, and Shiloh.

Early life

Michael Moriarty was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 5, 1941. He is the son of Eleanor (née Paul) and George Moriarty, a surgeon. His grandfather George Moriarty was a third baseman, umpire, and manager in major-league baseball for nearly 40 years.

Moriarty attended middle school at Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills before transferring to the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, graduating in 1959. He then matriculated at Dartmouth College, where he was a theatre major, in the class of 1963. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree, he left for London, England, where he enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, having received a Fulbright Scholarship.

Acting career

Before gaining fame in films, Moriarty worked for several years as an actor at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. In 1973, Moriarty was cast as the egocentric baseball player Henry Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly opposite Robert De Niro as a slow-witted, terminally ill catcher. In the same year, Moriarty starred in a TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie with Katharine Hepburn. Coincidentally, the film also featured Sam Waterston, who later replaced Moriarty as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order. Moriarty's role in The Glass Menagerie (as Jim, the Gentleman Caller; Waterston played the son Tom) won him an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He had a small part in The Last Detail, which was nominated for several Academy Awards. In 1974, Moriarty starred as rookie detective Bo Lockley in the acclaimed police drama Report to the Commissioner.

Moriarty won a Tony Award in 1974 for his performance in the play Find Your Way Home. His career on the screen was slow to develop, while his theatre career was flourishing. He played the lead character in Report to the Commissioner and had a significant role in Who'll Stop the Rain. He starred as the German SS officer Erik Dorf in the television miniseries Holocaust, which earned him another Emmy. Through the 1980s, Moriarty starred in such Larry Cohen movies as Q, The Stuff, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, and A Return to Salem's Lot (much later, he appeared in Pale Rider and The Hanoi Hilton, as well as the Masters of Horror episode "Pick Me Up", directed by Coen. In 1986, he starred in the fantasy science-fiction movie Troll, playing the role of Harry Potter, Sr. (unrelated to the Harry Potter series).

In 1989, Moriarty starred in the HBO production Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy, which dramatized the Soviet Union's shoot-down of Korean Air Lines flight 007 in 1983. He portrayed U.S. Air Force Major Hank Daniels, who was largely ignored (if not ridiculed) for showing how the ill-fated airliner had strayed off course into air space known by the Soviets to be used by U.S. Air Force electronic surveillance planes as they approached Soviet air space.

From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty starred as Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone on Law & Order. He left the show in 1994, alleging that his departure was a result of his threatening a lawsuit against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had cited Law & Order as offensively violent. Moriarty criticized Reno's comment and claimed that she wanted to censor not only shows such as Law & Order, but also such fare as Murder, She Wrote. He later accused Law & Order executive producer Dick Wolf of not taking his concerns seriously and claimed that Wolf and other network executives were "caving in" to Reno's "demands" on the issue of TV violence. On September 20, 1994, on The Howard Stern Show, he made an offer to NBC, claiming that he would return to his role on the show if Wolf was fired. Moriarty published a full-page advertisement in a Hollywood trade magazine calling upon fellow artists to stand up with him against attempts to censor TV show content. He subsequently wrote and published The Gift of Stern Angels, his account of this time in his life. In the fictional Law & Order universe, Ben Stone resigns from the D.A.'s office in 1994 after a witness in one of his cases is murdered. The February 7, 2018, episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit shows Sam Waterston's character, Jack McCoy, delivering a eulogy at Stone's funeral.

Wolf and others working on Law & Order contradict Moriarty's account of how he left the series. On November 18, 1993, Moriarty and Wolf, along with other television executives, met with Reno to dissuade her from supporting any law that would censor the show. Wolf said that Moriarty overreacted to any effect the law was likely to have on the show. Law & Order producers claim they were forced to remove Moriarty from the series because of "erratic behavior", an example of which reportedly happened during the filming of the episode "Breeder", when, according to the episode's director Arthur Forney, Moriarty began muttering to himself with a vacant look in his eyes, was unable to deliver his lines with a straight face, and had to be taken to a doctor. Series and network officials deny any connection between his departure and Janet Reno. Wolf also denies that the show has become less violent, graphic, or controversial since 1994.

Moriarty acted in The Last Detail, Courage Under Fire, Along Came a Spider, Shiloh, Emily of New Moon, and James Dean, for which he won his third Emmy. In 2007, he debuted his first feature-length film as screenwriter and performed the role of a man who thinks he is Adolf Hitler in Hitler Meets Christ.

Other ventures

In addition to his acting career, Moriarty is a semiprofessional jazz pianist and singer, as well as a classical composer. He has recorded three jazz albums (although the first, Reaching Out, went unreleased). He has regularly performed live in both New York City and Vancouver with a jazz trio and quintet. In a 1990 concert review, New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden called Moriarty "a jazz pianist of considerable skill, an oddball singer with more than one vocal personality, and a writer of eccentric, jivey jazz songs."

Moriarty is politically active, describing himself as a "centrist" and sometimes as a "realist". Moriarty announced his intention to run for the presidency in 2008 in an interview in the November 2005 issue of Northwest Jazz Profile, but he never formally declared his candidacy. He later endorsed fellow former Law & Order actor Fred Thompson for the presidency during the 2008 Republican primaries, as well as Carly Fiorina during the 2016 primary election cycle. He has been a frequent contributor of numerous political columns to the Enter Stage Right online Journal of Conservatism.

Personal life

Shortly after leaving Law & Order, Moriarty moved to Canada, declaring himself a political exile. He lived for a time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was granted Canadian citizenship, living in Toronto before settling in Vancouver.

In 2006, in the blog Enter Stage Right Moriarty wrote that he was a "very bad drunk", but as of 2004, he had been sober for two years.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	My Old Man's Place	Trubee Pell
1972	Hickey & Boggs	Ballard
1973	Bang the Drum Slowly	Henry "Author" Wiggen
1973	The Last Detail	First Lieutenant Marine Duty Officer
1974	Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue	Herbert G. Rucker
1975	Report to the Commissioner	Bo Lockley
1978	Who'll Stop the Rain	John Converse
1981	Reborn	Mark
1982	The Sound of Murder	Charles Norberry
1982	Q	Jimmy Quinn
1982	Blood Link	Keith Mannings
1985	Odd Birds	Brother T.S. Murphy
1985	Pale Rider	Hull Barret
1985	The Stuff	David "Mo" Rutherford
1986	Troll	Harry Potter Sr.
1987	The Hanoi Hilton	Williamson
1987	It's Alive III: Island of the Alive	Jarvis
1987	A Return to Salem's Lot	Joe Weber
1989	The Secret of the Ice Cave	Manny Wise
1989	Dark Tower	Dennis Randall
1990	Full Fathom Five	McKenzie
1995	Broken Silence	Pater Mulligan	Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
1996	Courage Under Fire	General Hershberg
1996	Shiloh	Ray Preston
1998	Earthquake in New York	Captain Paul Stenning
1999	The Art of Murder	Cole Sheridan
1999	Shiloh 2: Shiloh Season	Ray Preston
2000	Woman Wanted	Richard Goddard
2001	House of Luk	Mr. Kidd
2001	Along Came a Spider	Senator Hank Rose
2003	Cold Blooded	Mark Solomon
2005	Fugitives Run	Callohan
2005	Neverwas	Dick
2007	Hitler Meets Christ	Hitler
2012	The Yellow Wallpaper	Mr. Isaac Hendricks
2017	King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen	Himself
2021	Gunfight at Dry River	John 'Boone' Hawkins
2022	The Phantoms	Mr. Hendricks

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1973	A Summer Without Boys	Abe Battle	TV movie
1973	The Glass Menagerie	Jim O'Connor	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie
1977	The Deadliest Season	Gerry Miller	TV movie
1978	Holocaust	Erik Dorf	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie
1978	The Winds of Kitty Hawk	Wilbur Wright	TV movie
1979	Too Far to Go	Richard Maple	TV movie
1986	Cagney & Lacey	Patrick Lowell	Episode: "Act of Conscience"
1986	Hotel	Brad Carlton	Episode: "Heroes"
1987	The Equalizer	Dr. Peter Kapik	Episode: "Encounter in a Closed Room"
1988	The Twilight Zone	Warren Cribbens	Episode: "20/20 Vision"
1988	Windmills of the Gods	President Paul Ellison	TV movie
1988	Frank Nitti: The Enforcer	Hugh Kelly	TV movie
1989	The Equalizer	Wayne "Seti" Virgil	Episode: "Starfire" Nominated: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
1989	Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy	USAF Major Hank Daniels	TV movie
1990–1994	Law & Order	Benjamin Stone	Main cast (Seasons 1–4) Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama Nominated: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (1991–94)
1993	Born Too Soon	Fox Butterfield	TV movie
1995	Children of the Dust	John Maxwell	Miniseries, main cast
1996	Crime of the Century	Governor Harold Hoffman	TV movie
1997–1999	PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal	Michael Kelly	Recurring role (Seasons 2–3)
1997	Dead Man's Gun	John Pike	Episode: "Death Warrant"
1997	The Arrow	President Dwight D. Eisenhower	TV movie
1998	Poltergeist: The Legacy	Major Robert "Johnathan" Boyle	Episode: "Father to Son"
1998	Touched by an Angel	Dr. Charles Crayton	Episode: "Seek and Ye Shall Find"
1998	Emily of New Moon	Douglas Starr	3 episodes
1999	Strange World	Unknown	Episode: "Pilot"
2000	The Adventures of Jules Verne	Dr. Draco	Episode: "The Eyes of Lazzaro"
2000	Children of My Heart	Rodrique Eymard	TV movie
2000	The Outer Limits	Solicitor-General Wallace Gannon	Episode: "Final Appeal"
2001	Mentors	William Randolph Hearst	Episode: "Citizen Cates"
2001	James Dean	Winton Dean	TV movie Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
2002	Stephen King's Dead Zone	Reverend Gene Purdy	Episode: "Unaired Pilot"
2002	Taken	Colonel Thomas Campbell	Episode: "Beyond the Sky"
2002	Just Cause	Dr. Hamilton Whitney	Episode: "Death's Detail"
2004	The 4400	Orson Bailey	Episode: "Pilot"
2006	Masters of Horror	Jim Wheeler	Episode: "Pick Me Up"
2006	12 Hours to Live	Donald Saunders	TV movie
2006	Deadly Skies	General Dutton
2006	Santa Baby	T.J. Hamilton

External links

• Michael Moriarty at IMDb 
• Michael Moriarty at the Internet Broadway Database
• Michael Moriarty at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Michael Moriarty at AllMovie
• Michael Moriarty at the TCM Movie Database