Michael Moriarty

Michael Moriarty is an American actor born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 5, 1941. The son of Eleanor (née Paul) and George Moriarty, a surgeon, he experienced his parents' divorce at age 11. His grandfather, also named George Moriarty, had a career in major-league baseball as a third baseman, umpire, and manager. Moriarty attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills for middle school before completing his secondary education at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in 1959. He went on to earn a bachelor of arts degree in theater from Dartmouth College in 1963, after which a Fulbright Scholarship brought him to London, where he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Before establishing himself on screen, Moriarty spent several years performing at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. His Broadway career spanned from 1968 to 1993 and included appearances in The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Find Your Way Home, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and G. R. Point, among other productions. His performance in Find Your Way Home earned him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance, and the Theatre World Award, all in 1974.

Moriarty's screen career gained momentum in 1973 when he was cast as the egocentric baseball player Henry Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly, opposite Robert De Niro. That same year he appeared in a television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie alongside Katharine Hepburn, playing Jim, the Gentleman Caller. His work in that production won him an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also featured Sam Waterston, who would later succeed Moriarty in the role of Executive Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order. Also in 1973, Moriarty had a supporting role in The Last Detail, a film nominated for multiple Academy Awards. In 1974, he starred as rookie detective Bo Lockley in Report to the Commissioner.

In 1978, Moriarty took on the role of Nazi SS officer Erik Dorf in the television miniseries Holocaust, a performance that earned him both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Through the 1980s he appeared in a series of films directed by Larry Cohen, including Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, and A Return to Salem's Lot. In 1986 he starred in the fantasy science-fiction film Troll, playing the character Harry Potter, Sr. He also appeared in Pale Rider and The Hanoi Hilton during that decade. In 1989, he starred in the HBO production Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy, portraying U.S. Air Force Major Hank Daniels in a dramatization of the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Air Lines flight 007 in 1983.

From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty starred as Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone during the first four seasons of the television series Law & Order. His departure from the show became a matter of public dispute. Moriarty stated that he left after threatening a lawsuit against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had cited Law & Order as offensively violent, and after producer Dick Wolf declined to support his position. On September 20, 1994, he appeared on The Howard Stern Show and offered to return to the series if Wolf were fired, and he subsequently published a full-page advertisement in a Hollywood trade publication calling on fellow artists to oppose television censorship. He later wrote The Gift of Stern Angels documenting this period. Law & Order producers, however, stated that Moriarty was removed due to erratic behavior on set and denied any connection between his exit and the Reno controversy. Wolf also denied that the series became less violent or controversial following Moriarty's departure.

Moriarty's subsequent film work included roles in Who'll Stop the Rain, Courage Under Fire, Shiloh, Along Came a Spider, and the Masters of Horror episode "Pick Me Up," directed by Larry Cohen. He won a third Emmy Award for his performance in the television film James Dean. In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for and performed in Hitler Meets Christ, his debut as a feature-length screenwriter.

Beyond acting, Moriarty is a semiprofessional jazz pianist and singer as well as a classical composer. He recorded three jazz albums, the first of which, Reaching Out, was never released. He has performed regularly with jazz trios and quintets in both New York City and Vancouver. A 1990 New York Times review by Stephen Holden described him as "a jazz pianist of considerable skill, an oddball singer with more than one vocal personality, and a writer of eccentric, jivey jazz songs."

Moriarty has been politically active, describing himself as a centrist and a realist. In the November 2005 issue of Northwest Jazz Profile he announced an intention to seek the presidency in 2008, though he never formally declared his candidacy. He subsequently endorsed former Law & Order colleague Fred Thompson during the 2008 Republican primaries and Carly Fiorina during the 2016 primary cycle. He has contributed political columns to the online publication Enter Stage Right and was a member of Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East. In 1984 he signed a letter protesting German arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Moriarty married ballet dancer Francoise Martinet in 1966; they had one son and divorced in 1978. That same year he married Anne Hamilton Martin, and they divorced in 1997. A subsequent marriage to Suzana Cabrita in 1998 ended in divorce in 1999. He then entered a common-law relationship with his manager, Margaret Brychka. In November 2000 he was charged with assaulting Brychka; after entering an alcohol treatment program he was released on a peace bond, the proceedings were stayed, and the couple reunited.