Dean Riesner

Biography

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 …

Movies & TV Shows

1. The Pilgrim (1923) — Little Boy
2. The Chaplin Revue (1959) — Various (archive footage)
3. Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987)
4. Assigned to Danger (1948) — Dr. Michael Kelly (uncredited)
5. The Traveling Saleswoman (1950) — Tom
6. Peck's Bad Boy (1921)
7. Play It Again: A Look Back at 'Play Misty for Me' (2001) — Self
8. Hollywood (1923) — Dean Riesner
9. It's in the Air (1935) — Brave (uncredited)
10. Gunfire (1950) — Outlaw Mack
11. The Cobra Strikes (1948) — Detective Brody
12. Everybody Dance (1936) — Tommy Spurgeon
13. Square Shoulders (1929) — Cadet (uncredited)
14. A Prince of a King (1923) — Gigi, the Prince
15. Grief (1921)

Directed

1. Bill and Coo (1948) — Director