David Ogden Stiers Movies
In contrast to the insufferably intellectual characters he has played so often and so well, David Ogden Stiers wasn't much of a student while growing up in Eugene, Oregon. Like many another "underachiever," Stiers excelled at the things he was truly interested in, such as music (he played piano and french horn) and acting. After flunking out of the University of Oregon, Stiers stepped up his amateur-theatrical activities, and at age 20 was hired by the California Shakespeare Festival at Santa Clara, where he spent the next seven years performing the Classics. After briefly working with the famous San Francisco improv group The Committee, Stiers attended Julliard, in hopes of improving his vocal delivery. Evidently his training paid off: in 1974, Stiers co-starred with Zero Mostel in the Broadway production Ulysses in Nighttown, then went on to appear opposite Doug Henning in the long-running musical The Magic Show. Despite his success, Stiers detested New York, and at the first opportunity he "ran screaming" back to the West Coast. He was cast in the short-lived sitcom Doc in 1975, and the following year played an important role in the 90-minute pilot for Charlie's Angels, though he passed when offered a regular assignment in the Angels series proper. Stiers' performance as a stuttering TV executive in a 1976 Mary Tyler Moore Show episode led to his being cast as the overbearing Major Charles Emerson Winchester on the ever-popular M*A*S*H; at first signed to a two-year contract, Stiers remained with the series until its final episode in February of 1983. Before, during and after his tenure on M*A*S*H, Stiers kept busy in made-for-TV films, lending his patented authoritativeness to such real-life characters as Dr. Charles Mayo (in 1977's A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story), critic and social arbiter Cleveland Amory (1984's Anatomy of an Illness) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1987's J. Edgar Hoover). He was also seen as pontificating DA Michael Reston in several of the Perry Mason TV-movies of the late 1980s. Disney animation devotees will remember Stiers for his voiceover work as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (1988) and Lord Ratcliffe in Pocahontas (1995). Parlaying his lifelong love of classical music into a second career, David Ogden Stiers has served as guest conductor for over 70 major U.S. symphony orchestras. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on his award-winning student short, George Lucas's debut feature cerebrally celebrates the possibility for individual freedom against all odds. In a 1984-esque white-washed future underground dystopia where sexuality is banned, all humans sport shaved heads and the same shapeless outfits as they go about their work in a mandated state of sedation, listening to exhortations to "Buy and Be Happy." Black-clad robot cops chant a mantra to their victims that "everything will be all right" and automated confessional booths emit soothing therapeutic bromides. But unbeknownst to THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has been reducing their meds, resulting in their mutual discovery of love and THX's subsequent imprisonment for drug evasion and sexual misconduct. Determined to find the pregnant LUH, THX breaks out of prison with the help of his cellmate SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and an escaped TV hologram (Don Pedro Colley). With fugitive pursuits strictly budgeted, THX only has to evade the robocops until the funds run out, but surveillance is omnipresent and THX's vehicle keeps overheating. Making the only film produced through the first incarnation of Francis Ford Coppola's independent studio American Zoetrope, Lucas and his small crew, including co-writer and sound editor Walter Murch, shot THX 1138 in northern California with no interference from distributor Warner Bros. When Warners saw the austere result, however, they recut the film before its release. Neither the studio's nor Lucas's cut was a popular success, but THX 1138's coolly minimalist style and story-telling gained fans on the college screening circuit, just as Stanley Kubrick's poetic 2001: A Space Odyssey had attracted a large youth audience in 1968. When Lucas returned to sci-fi after American Graffiti, he traded restraint for nostalgic fun in the film that guaranteed his creative freedom in Hollywood: Star Wars. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, (more)
- 1971
- R
Jack Nicholson first put his well-documented enthusiasm for basketball to good use in this film, which he wrote and directed between his roles in Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge. William Tepper plays Hector, a student at a college in Ohio who shares a room with his friend Gabriel (Michael Margotta) and is the star player on the school's basketball team. Hector has been approached to quit college and play pro ball, but Gabriel is urging him to devote more time to radical political causes. Of course, both have plenty of other things on their mind; Hector is having a clandestine affair with the wife of one of his professors (Karen Black), while Gabriel, in a bid to beat the draft and avoid going to Vietnam, is trying to convince the draft board that he's insane. Unfortunately, Gabriel is feigning madness so well that he's not so sure he hasn't actually become crazy. Director Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne also have supporting roles, as do future sitcom greats Cindy Williams and David Ogden Stiers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Tepper, Karen Black, (more)
