Michael Moriarty
Birthday:
Birthplace:
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Detroit-born Michael Moriarty was still in his teens when he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. At 22, Moriarty played Octavius Caesar in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Antony and Cleopatra, the first of many Shakespearean assignments. He made his Broadway bow in Trial of the Catonsville 9 and his film debut in 1972's Hickey and Boggs. In 1973 and 1974, no one was a likelier candidate for big-time stardom than Michael Moriarty. He starred as ingratiatingly egotistical ballplayer Henry Wiggen in theatrical feature Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), earned an Emmy for his portrayal of the Gentleman Caller in a TV adaptation of The Glass Menagerie, and won the Tony award for his work in the Broadway play Find Your Way Home. While his stage career flourished (he'd later star in well-received revivals of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial and My Fair Lady) his movie career was not as successful. It was television that made Moriarty a "name" in the eyes of the public, especially after his chillingly effective Emmy-winning turn as pasty-faced Nazi bureaucrat Erik Dorf in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust. In his film appearances of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Moriarty evinced a preference for working in director Larry Cohen's low-budget horror efforts, which brought little in the way of prestige but which assured him juicy leading roles. He was particularly good in Cohen's Q (1982), as a scuzzy, unprincipled mercenary who becomes the film's hero-by-default. From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty earned three Emmy nominations for his work as Assistant DA Ben Stone in TV's Law and Order; he left the series in 1995, complaining that Attorney General Janet Reno's criticisms of TV violence seriously endangered his ability to perform at fullest capacity. In addition to his considerable acting accomplishments, Moriarty is a superb jazz pianist; he has cut albums with his own jazz trio, and is a frequent performer at Michael's Pub, a New York nitery which occasionally features director Woody Allen on the clarinet. In addition, Michael Moriarty can be seen as the Governor of New Jersey in Crime of the Century, a 1996 TV-movie recreation of the Bruno Richard Hauptmann trial.
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | Gunfight at Dry River |
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— | 2021 |
No Score Yet | The Yellow Wallpaper |
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— | 2012 |
No Score Yet | Deadly Skies |
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— | 2007 |
No Score Yet | Hitler Meets Christ |
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— | 2007 |
No Score Yet | Santa Baby |
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— | 2006 |
98% | The War Tapes |
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— | 2006 |
No Score Yet | Masters of Horror |
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— | 2006 |
No Score Yet | Choosing Sides: I Remember Vietnam |
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— | 2005 |
14% | Neverwas |
|
— | 2005 |
No Score Yet | Swimming Upstream |
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— | 2005 |
46% | Latter Days |
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— | 2004 |
No Score Yet | Mob Princess |
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— | 2003 |
No Score Yet | Cold Blooded |
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— | 2003 |
No Score Yet | Talking to Heaven (Living with the Dead) |
|
— | 2002 |
93% | James Dean |
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— | 2001 |
32% | Along Came a Spider |
|
$73.6M | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Mindstorm |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Huyendo de la Ley |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | House of Luk |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | The Art of Murder |
|
— | 2000 |
97% | The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg |
|
— | 2000 |
67% | Hickey & Boggs |
|
— | 2000 |
No Score Yet | Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants |
|
— | 2000 |
70% | Shiloh 2: Shiloh Season |
|
— | 1999 |
No Score Yet | Woman Wanted |
|
— | 1999 |
No Score Yet | Earthquake in New York |
|
— | 1998 |
No Score Yet | Choosing Sides: I Remember Vietnam - Fields of Fire |
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— | 1998 |
No Score Yet | Choosing Sides: I Remember Vietnam - The War At Home |
|
— | 1998 |
73% | Shiloh |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | Crime of the Century |
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— | 1996 |
85% | Courage Under Fire |
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— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Managua |
|
— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Calm at Sunset |
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— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Cagney & Lacey: True Convictions |
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— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | A Good Day To Die |
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— | 1995 |
No Score Yet | Children of the Dust |
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— | 1995 |
No Score Yet | Born Too Soon |
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— | 1993 |
No Score Yet | Full Fathom Five |
|
— | 1990 |
No Score Yet | The Secret of the Ice Cave |
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— | 1989 |
No Score Yet | Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy |
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— | 1989 |
No Score Yet | Frank Nitti: The Enforcer |
|
— | 1988 |
No Score Yet | Sidney Sheldon's 'Windmills of the Gods' |
|
— | 1988 |
No Score Yet | Dark Tower |
|
— | 1987 |
No Score Yet | The Hanoi Hilton |
|
— | 1987 |
No Score Yet | A Return to Salem's Lot |
|
— | 1987 |
50% | It's Alive III: Island of the Alive |
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— | 1987 |
30% | Troll |
|
— | 1986 |
93% | Pale Rider |
|
— | 1985 |
71% | The Stuff |
|
— | 1985 |
No Score Yet | Odd Birds |
|
— | 1985 |
No Score Yet | Blood Link |
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— | 1982 |
71% | Q |
|
— | 1982 |
No Score Yet | The Sound of Murder |
|
— | 1982 |
No Score Yet | Too Far to Go |
|
— | 1979 |
No Score Yet | The Winds Of Kitty Hawk |
|
— | 1978 |
77% | Who'll Stop the Rain |
|
— | 1978 |
No Score Yet | Reborn |
|
— | 1978 |
40% | Report to the Commissioner |
|
— | 1975 |
No Score Yet | Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue |
|
— | 1974 |
No Score Yet | The Glass Menagerie |
|
— | 1973 |
89% | The Last Detail |
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— | 1973 |
92% | Bang The Drum Slowly |
|
— | 1973 |
No Score Yet | My Old Man's Place |
|
— | 1971 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet |
Law & Order
1990
|
|
|
78% |
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Ken Burns' Baseball
1994-2010
|
|
|
63% |
Masters of Horror
2005-2007
|
|
|
95% |
The 4400
2004-2007
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Steven Spielberg Presents 'Taken'
2002
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Outer Limits
1995-2002
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|
|
No Score Yet |
Touched by an Angel
1994-2003
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Equalizer
1985-1989
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|
|
No Score Yet |
The Twilight Zone
1985-1989
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|
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No Score Yet |
Strange World (2002)
2002
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Quotes from Michael Moriarty's Characters
Henry Wiggen: | From here on, I'll never rag anybody. |
Henry Wiggen: | From here on in I rag nobody. |
Henry Wiggen: | Power plus brains is the difference between nobody and somebody. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | There nobody here but you? |
Gas Station Attendant: | Well, don't you wanna wash your hands or something? I put in a new towel! |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | The only thing Chocolate Chip Charlie knows better than fighting is running. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Pick a direction! |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Are you eating it or is it eating you? |
Fletcher: | Let go of it, Mr. Rutherford. You can't stop it. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | I can shut you down. |
Fletcher: | (laughs) - I don't know. I really don't know. I don't think anybody would pay too much attention to a disreputable guy like you. You're a rogue; you're a crook in the pay of the ice cream companies just out trying to screw the competition. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | I could always kill you. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | That stuff comes right out of the center of the Earth and straight into our supermarkets. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | You are not thinking about going after it! |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | I hope you got a gun on you, Charlie! |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | How many times am I supposed to tell you my hands are lethal weapons? |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | I hope you're right, 'cause if that thing tries to kill me, you kill me first! |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Okay, lethal hands, kill the door. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | Watch out for splinters. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Well, everybody has to eat shaving cream once in a while. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | You're Chocolate Chip Charlie! |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | Well, I sure as hell ain't the Kentucky Colonel! |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Did you find anything out? |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | What you gonna find out, man, in a town that has just dried up and blown away, man? ...Must be a side effect of eating too much dessert; an urge to migrate. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | What you gonna find out, man, in a town that has just dried up and blown away, man? Must be a side effect of eating too much dessert; an urge to migrate. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | The name's Mo Rutherford. They call me that 'cause when people give me money, I always want mo'. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | No one is as dumb as I appear to be. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | What do you think, Charlie? |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | The man is not in proper operating order. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Absolutely. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | I'd like to take him someplace and get him X-rayed. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Yeah, but what if he doesn't wanna come along with us? |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | We snatch him. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Oh, now, Charlie, I run a high-tech operation. I don't go in for things like that. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | I got a few low-tech solutions for our problem. We hit that sucker over the head. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Oh, well, ummm...we could do that. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | Oh, well, ummm, we could do that. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | We throw him in the trunk of the car. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | We could do that, too. |
Chocolate Chip Charlie: | And we take off. |
David "Moe" Rutherford: | In whose car? |