Dean Riesner

Dean Riesner

Born: November 3, 1918
Died: August 18, 2002
in New Rochelle, New York, USA
Dean Riesner (November 3, 1918, New Rochelle, New York – August 18, 2002, Encino, California) was an American film and television writer.

Riesner's father, Charles Reisner, was a German American silent film director, and Dean began acting in films at the age of five as "Dinky Dean". His most notable role was in Charlie Chaplin's 1923 film The Pilgrim. His career at this young age ended because his mother wanted her son to have a real childhood. As an adult, his first job in films was as a co-writer of the 1939 Ronald Reagan movie Code of the Secret Service.

Riesner won an Oscar for directing Bill and Coo (1948), a feature film with a cast of real birds, costumed as humans, acting on the world's smallest film set.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Riesner worked primarily in television, including writing for Rawhide and the "Tourist Attraction" episode of The Outer Limits, although he occasionally contributed to feature films like The Helen Morgan Story. In 1968 he landed a job working on the Clint Eastwood action film Coogan's Bluff, and this in turn would lead to him writing several other Eastwood features throughout the 1970s. Riesner helped pen the screenplays for two Eastwood films in 1971, Play Misty for Me and the original Dirty Harry. In 1973 he provided an uncredited rewrite for High Plains Drifter, and in 1976 he was one of the writers to draft The Enforcer, the third Dirty Harry thriller. That same year he provided the teleplay for NBC's highly rated miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, starring Nick Nolte. In 1979 he wrote an early draft screenplay for The Godfather Part III, but his script was discarded when Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo finally agreed to collaborate on a third entry in the series.

Riesner continued to write into the 1980s, though most of his work from that period went uncredited. Those films include Das Boot, The Sting II, and Starman.

Riesner died in 2002 of natural causes. He had been married to actress Maila Nurmi, better known as the horror hostess Vampira.

Movies for Dean Riesner...

Play It Again: A Look Back at 'Play Misty for Me'
Title: Play It Again: A Look Back at 'Play Misty for Me'
Character: Self
Released: September 18, 2001
Type: Movie
Clint Eastwood tells us how he yearned to be a director from the time he was on "Rawhide" to finally obtaining the approval of his mentor, Don Siegel. He then asked Lew R. Wasserman, a Universal executive, if he could direct a story called "Play Misty For Me." Lew said yes but that he wouldn't be paid as the director. Clint agreed and began to locate the cast and crew he desired.
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Title: Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow
Released: September 30, 1987
Type: TV
A series about the life, career and works of the movie comedy genius.
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Gunfire
Title: Gunfire
Character: Outlaw Mack
Released: August 12, 1950
Type: Movie
Tubercular Frank James has become a born again and retired from his career as an outlaw with his family but a look-a-like outlaw causes suspicion to fall back on him.
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The Traveling Saleswoman
Title: The Traveling Saleswoman
Character: Tom
Released: February 15, 1950
Type: Movie
The daughter of a soap manufacturer heads to the wild and woolly west to sell her daddy's product.
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Assigned to Danger
Title: Assigned to Danger
Character: Dr. Michael Kelly (uncredited)
Released: May 19, 1948
Type: Movie
A gang of bank robbers is pursued by an insurance investigator.
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The Cobra Strikes
Title: The Cobra Strikes
Character: Detective Brody
Released: April 24, 1948
Type: Movie
A newspaper reporter investigates the near-fatal shooting of a medical scientist.
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Everybody Dance
Title: Everybody Dance
Character: Tommy Spurgeon
Released: September 6, 1936
Type: Movie
When her sister dies, a nightclub singer is left with her children. In order to raise the children properly, she leaves her singing career and takes her new family to a farm. However, her greedy manager--seeing his "cash cow" slipping away--goes to court to have her declared legally incompetent.
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It's in the Air
Title: It's in the Air
Character: Brave (uncredited)
Released: October 10, 1935
Type: Movie
Con men Calvin Churchill and Clip McGurk know how to fix a horse-race or boxing match. Calvin wants to go straight and win back his estranged wife, but first the men must dodge a dogged IRS agent and bilk a bunch of aviation investors out of the backing boodle for a balloon excursion into the stratosphere.
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Hollywood
Title: Hollywood
Character: Dean Riesner
Released: August 19, 1923
Type: Movie
Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...
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The Pilgrim
Title: The Pilgrim
Character: Little Boy
Released: February 19, 1923
Type: Movie
The Tramp is an escaped convict who is mistaken as a pastor in a small town church.
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Grief
Title: Grief
Released: May 1, 1921
Type: Movie
Begins with a child-cast parody of "The Kid." The Adams portion finds the guy chased about town because they are looking for some crook in a gray derby...and Jimmie happens to have one.
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Peck's Bad Boy
Title: Peck's Bad Boy
Released: April 21, 1921
Type: Movie
This portrayal of small town life before the War is based on a small boys determination to get to see the circus, over all obstacles. Escaped lions, lightheaded blackmail of his father, and playfully planting stolen papers on his sisters boyfriend are all in a days work for little Henry Peck.