
Dean Riesner
Known for WritingBorn 1918-11-03Died 2002-08-18New 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.Read more
Movies & web series
So You Want to Know Your Relatives
★ 10.0View details →
So You Want to Know Your Relatives
1954 · Movie
★ 8.6View details →
Das Boot
1985 · Series
★ 9.0View details →
Hollywood
1923 · Movie
★ 8.1View details →
Das Boot
1981 · Movie
★ 8.0View details →
The Keegans
1976 · Movie
★ 7.9View details →
Rich Man, Poor Man
1976 · Series
Conflict
★ 8.0View details →
Conflict
1956 · Series
★ 7.8View details →
The Outer Limits
1963 · Series
★ 7.5View details →
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow
1987 · Series
★ 8.0View details →
Square Shoulders
1929 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
Dirty Harry
1971 · Movie
★ 7.6View details →
The Thin Man
1957 · Series
★ 7.4View details →
Charley Varrick
1973 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
Play It Again: A Look Back at 'Play Misty for Me'
2001 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
The Cobra Strikes
1948 · Movie
★ 7.4View details →
The Chaplin Revue
1959 · Movie
★ 7.2View details →
12 O'Clock High
1964 · Series
★ 7.2View details →
Rawhide
1959 · Series
★ 7.1View details →
77 Sunset Strip
1958 · Series
★ 6.9View details →
Ironside
1967 · Series
★ 7.0View details →
Skipalong Rosenbloom
1951 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
Gunfire
1950 · Movie
★ 6.7View details →
The Enforcer
1976 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
Everybody Dance
1936 · Movie
★ 6.5View details →
Sudden Impact
1983 · Movie
★ 6.6View details →
Play Misty for Me
1971 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
A Prince of a King
1923 · Movie
★ 6.7View details →
Bill and Coo
1948 · Movie
★ 6.5View details →
The Virginian
1962 · Series
★ 6.9View details →
The Pilgrim
1923 · Movie
★ 6.4View details →
Coogan's Bluff
1968 · Movie
★ 6.3View details →
Surfside 6
1960 · Series
★ 6.3View details →
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
1959 · Series
★ 6.3View details →
It's in the Air
1935 · Movie
★ 6.1View details →
Cheyenne
1955 · Series
The Long, Hot Summer
★ 6.0View details →
The Long, Hot Summer
1965 · Series
★ 6.0View details →
Bourbon Street Beat
1959 · Series
★ 6.0View details →
Bronco
1958 · Series
★ 6.1View details →
Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die
1942 · Movie
★ 5.9View details →
Ben Casey
1961 · Series
★ 5.6View details →
Fatal Beauty
1987 · Movie
★ 5.8View details →
Lawman
1958 · Series
★ 5.7View details →
Stranger on the Run
1967 · Movie
★ 5.6View details →
Lancer
1968 · Series
★ 5.6View details →
The Man from Galveston
1963 · Movie
★ 5.8View details →
The Fighting 69th
1940 · Movie
★ 5.6View details →
Paris Holiday
1958 · Movie
★ 5.7View details →
A Fugitive from Justice
1940 · Movie