Michael Moriarty Biography

Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian stage and screen actor, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons in the TV series Law & Order.

Early life

Moriarty, an Irish American was born in Detroit, Michigan the son of Elinor (née Paul) and George Moriarty, a General Medical Surgeon who also operated on Detroit Policemen, His grandfather, George Moriarty, was a third baseman, umpire and manager in the major leagues for nearly 40 years.

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

Acting career

In 1973, Moriarty was cast as the egocentric Henry Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly, a film about the unlikely friendship between two baseball teammates – the second being Robert De Niro, a slow thinking catcher who becomes terminally ill. 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 Menagerie (as "Jim," the Gentleman Caller; Waterston played the son "Tom") won him an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor of the Year. In 1974, Moriarty starred as rookie detective Bo Lockley in the acclaimed gritty police drama Report to the Commissioner.

Moriarty won a Tony Award in 1974 for his work in Find Your Way Home. His career on the screen was slow to develop, while his theatre career was flourishing. He starred as a German SS officer 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 Cohen's Masters of Horror episode "Pick Me Up"), as well as Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider and The Hanoi Hilton. In 1986, he starred in the fantasy science fiction movie Troll, playing the role of Harry Potter Sr. (unrelated to the 2001 Harry Potter series.)

From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty starred as 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 not only did she want to censor shows like 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 Dick 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.

Wolf and others working on Law & Order tell a different story, however. 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 was unable to deliver his lines with a straight face. 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.

Musical career

In addition to his acting career, Moriarty is a semi-professional jazz pianist and singer, as well as a classical composer. He has recorded three jazz albums (though the first, Reaching Out, went unreleased), and has performed live regularly in both New York 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".

Politics

Moriarty is politically active, describing himself as a "centrist", and sometimes as a "realist". He has written extensively on his opposition to abortion.

In response to a 2006 interview question as to what the most pressing issue facing the United States was, he stated: </ref>}}

Moriarty announced his intention to run for the presidency in 2008 in an interview in the November 2005 issue of Northwest Jazz Profile, but never formally declared his candidacy. He later endorsed fellow former Law & Order actor Fred Thompson for the presidency. He has been a frequent contributor of numerous political columns to the ESR (Enter Stage Right) online Journal of Conservativism.

A website called Michael Moriarty Unofficial, Unauthorized, Unsanctioned Home Page contains editorials by Moriarty, and these, in addition to posts on ESR, contain scathing denunciations of an eclectic array of targets, including Bill Clinton, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, anti-Catholicism, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George W. Bush, both major U.S. political parties, Halliburton, Kenny G, the College of Cardinals, and Islam. Historically, he has been a supporter of the United States Republican Party. A 2006 interview contains the following quotes by Moriarty:

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He later restated his previous comments towards Islam, deeming that Osama bin Laden preached a perverted, traitorous form of Islam: </ref>}}

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, and Toronto, Ontario before settling in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Moriarty lives in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, where he still acts, writes and plays music. On the blog Enter Stage Right Moriarty writes that he was a "very bad drunk", but that as of February 1, 2004, he had been sober for three years.

Filmography

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	A Summer Without Boys	Abe Battle	Television movie
1973	The Last Detail	Marine O.D.
1973	The Glass Menagerie	Jim O'Connor	Television movie Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
1974	Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue	Herbert G. Rucker
1975	Report to the Commissioner	Bo Lockley
1977	The Deadliest Season	Gerry Miller	Television movie
1978	Holocaust	Eric Dorf	4 episodes Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Television Series Drama Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
1978	Who'll Stop the Rain	John Converse
1978	The Winds of Kitty Hawk	Wilbur Wright	Television movie
1979	Too Far to Go	Richard Maple
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	Cagney & Lacey	Patrick Lowell	Episode: "Act of Conscience"
1986	Troll	Harry Potter, Sr.
1986	Hotel	Brad Carlton	Episode: "Heroes"
1987	The Equalizer	Dr. Peter Kapik	Episode: "Encounter in a Closed Room"
1987	The Hanoi Hilton	Williamson
1987	It's Alive III: Island of the Alive	Jarvis
1987	A Return to Salem's Lot	Joe Weber
1988	Windmills of the Gods	Eillison	Television movie
1988	Frank Nitti: The Enforcer	Hugh Kelly	Television movie
1988	The Twilight Zone	Warren Cribbons	Episode: "20/20 Vision"
1989	The Secret of the Ice Cave	Manny Wise
1989	Dark Tower	Dennis Randall
1989	The Equalizer	Wayne 'Seti' Virgil	Episode: "Starfire" Nominated"?Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
1990	Full Fathom Five	McKenzie
1990-1994	Law & Order	Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone	88 episodes Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Television Series Drama Nominated"?Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (1991"94)
1995	Children of the Dust	John Maxwell	Television movie
1995	Broken Silence	Mulligan	Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
1996	Courage Under Fire	General Hershberg
1996	Shiloh	Ray Preston
1997-1999	PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal	Michael Kelly	10 episodes
1997	The Arrow	President Dwight D. Eisenhower	Television movie
1997	Dead Man's Gun	John Pike	Episode: "Death Warrant"
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	The Art of Murder	Cole Sheridan
1999	Strange World	Unknown	Episode: "Pilot"
1999	Shiloh 2: Shiloh Season	Ray Preston
2000	Woman Wanted	Richard Goddard
2000	Children of My Heart	Rodrique Eymard	Television movie
2000	The Adventures of Jules Verne	Dr. Draco	Episode: "The Eyes of Lazzaro"
2000	The Outer Limits	Solicitor-General Wallace Gannon	Episode: "Final Appeal"
2001	Mentors	William Randolph Hearst	Episode: "Citizen Cates"
2001	House of Luk	Mr. Kidd
2001	James Dean	Winton Dean	Television movie Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
2001	Along Came a Spider	Senator Hank Rose
2002	Stephen King's Dead Zone	Reverend Eugene 'Gene' Purdy	Episode: "Unaired Pilot"
2002	Taken	Colonel Thomas Campbell	Episode: "Beyond the Sky"
2002	Just Cause	Dr. Hamilton Whitney	Episode: "Death's Detail"
2003	Cold Blooded	Mark Solomon
2004	The 4400	Orson Bailey	Episode: "Pilot"
2005	Fugitives Run	Callohan
2005	Neverwas	Dick
2006	Masters of Horror	Jim Wheeler	Episode: "Pick Me Up"
2006	12 Hours to Live	Donald Saunders	Television movie
2006	Deadly Skies	General Dutton	Television movie
2007	Hitler Meets Christ	Hitler