Person Details

Birthday: 1918-11-03 06:24:39

Death: 2002-08-18 06:24:39

Aliases: Dinky Dean , Dink Dean , Dean Franklin , Charles Reisner Jr. , Dean Reisner , Dinky Reisner , Dean E. Riesner

Gender: Male

Place of birth: New Rochelle, New York, USA

Homepage:

Movie Involvements: 29

TV Involvements: 28


Most Famous Work

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 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.

Most Famous Work

Cheyenne
Average
6

Cheyenne

(1955) Writer
Surfside 6
Average
5

Surfside 6

(1960) Writer
Ironside
Average
7

Ironside

(1967) Writer
The Virginian
Average
7

The Virginian

(1962) Writer
Rawhide
Average
7

Rawhide

(1959) Writer
Ben Casey
Average
6

Ben Casey

(1961) Writer
The Outer Limits
Average
8

The Outer Limits

(1963) Writer
77 Sunset Strip
Average
7

77 Sunset Strip

(1958) Writer

Acting

Writing

Year Role Movie/Tv
1987 Screenplay
1985 Screenplay
1983 Writer
Writer
1981 Screenplay
1976 Screenplay
Teleplay
Writer
Writer
Teleplay
Writer
1973 Screenplay
1971 Screenplay
Screenplay
Teleplay
1970 Teleplay
Writer
1968 Screenplay
Writer
1967 Teleplay
Writer
1965 Writer
1964 Writer
1963 Writer
Writer
1962 Writer
1961 Writer
1960 Writer
1959 Writer
Writer
Writer
1958 Writer
Writer
Writer
Writer
1957 Writer
Writer
Writer
Writer
1956 Writer
1955 Writer
1954 Story
1951 Screenplay
1950 Writer
1948 Screenplay
1942 Story
1940 Screenplay
Year Role Movie/Tv

Creator

Year Role Movie/Tv
1971 Creator
1968 Creator
1965 Creator
Year Role Movie/Tv

Directing

Year Role Movie/Tv
1948 Director
Year Role Movie/Tv

Crew

Year Role Movie/Tv
1940 Additional Writing
Year Role Movie/Tv

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