Moosie Drier

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Moosie Drier (Born August 6, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American television and movie actor and occasional director, starting as a notable child actor more recently known for voice-over work.

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Drier attended U.S. Grant High School in Van Nuys, California.

Driers’ first role was as a deaf boy in two 1972 episodes of Lassie.

Drier began his television career as a recurring performer on Laugh-in from the middle of season three to the final season in 1973.

During this period, Drier had his movie roles in the 1972 Jack Lemmon comedy, The War Between Men and Women, the 1972 Barbra Streisand comedy Up The Sandbox, The Toy Game in 1973, and the made-for-TV comedies Here Comes The Judge, (1973). Roll, Freddie, Roll (1974), and All Together Now (1975).

A particularly notable movie role from this period includes his appearance as Adam Landers in 1977’s George Burns comedy Oh, God!.

Drier also began what has proved to be the later emphasis of his career, voice acting, as a regular character in ABC’s memorable 1974 These Are the Days, an animated answer to The Waltons (in which Drier also had a 1-shot role).

Other recurring television roles included occasional spots on The Bob Newhart Show as Howie, the son of Howard Borden, in episodes generally highlighting Borden’s anxiety, as a divorced father, over his sons’ respect and affections.

In 1976 on CBS’s short-lived series Executive Suite, Drier went on to play a more serious role as a recurring character B.J. Koslo, the somewhat estranged son of charismatic failure/rascal Nick Koslo; in this role, the troubled boy eventually comes under the care of Nick's recently-met love interest, as Koslo is sentenced to a year in prison for industrial espionage.

Throughout the 1970’s, Drier also played a variety of one-shot roles on such TV shows as The Barbara Eden Show (1973), The Waltons (1973), Adam-12 (1973), Apple's Way (1974), Police Story (3 episodes, 1974, 1975 ), Emergency! (2 episodes in 1975), Doc (1975), and Little House on the Prairie (1976).

During this period, like many other young actors of his generation, Drier had his requisite appearances on ABC Afterschool Specials, including: Runaways (1974) Hewitt's Just Different (1977) and Andrea's Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy (1983).

Hewitt’s Just Different, an Emmy winner, was a lead role for Drier, as the developmentally disabled title character's friend, advocate and defender, wherein he must choose whether to remain friends with Hewitt, despite pressure by family and friends to break off the friendship, even after Hewitt’s knuckleball coaching has allowed Drier to qualify for the school team.

The late 1970’s and early 1980’s included less-memorable roles or movies, including 1977’s ants-on-the rampage TV thriller It Happened at Lakewood Manor, 1978 real-story based courtroom murder thriller When Every Day Was the Fourth of July, and Peter Benchley scripted sea thriller Hunters of the Reef in 1978.

A pair of more interesting roles from this period come from a pair of 1978 biographical dramas; Drier played a young Mickey Rooney in the 1978 Judy Garland biography Rainbow, while in the Allan Freed bio American Hot Wax, Drier played Artie Moress, the head of a Buddy Holly fan-club, who gives a tearful on-the-air memorial just after the famous plane crash. Driers’ performance received by far the warmest comment from the subsequent, somewhat mixed New York Times review.

1978 also saw the filming, but not the release of the made-for TV Jack Albertson vehicle Charlie and the Great Balloon Chase saw Drier play the fatherless grandson of Albertsons’ character. Drier’s character encourages Albertson to take a late-life but long-dreamed-of balloon trip despite the reservations of most of the others around them—and ends up accompanying the old man despite on-ground pursuit of the balloon by the mother, the police, and the FBI.

Charlie and the Great Balloon Chase was not actually shown until 1981, the year of Albertsons’ death; which perhaps by accident sharpens the frequent theme in Drier’s early work as the son-figure of estranged father figures.

In 1980 year Drier played a character also called Moosie in the more memorable The Hollywood Knights.

Continuing Drier's frequent performances as an estranged son of divorced fathers, in the 1980 made for TV movie Homeward Bound, he played the terminally ill Bobby Seaton, who seeks over a last summer vacation to repair his relationship with his father Jake, played by fellow Chicagoan David Soul.

Drier’s now-more-sporadic one-shot appearances included CHiPs (1980), Family Ties (1983).

Between 1984 and 1988, Drier played Riley, one of the original non-musical cast members on Kids Incorporated. In 1988, he made his director debut with episode 84, "Kahuna Kids".

He also acted in the 1985 made-for-TV movie Student Court.

This period also saw an increase in Drier's 1-spot appearances, including Diff'rent Strokes (1986, The A-Team (1986), Highway to Heaven (1986), Blacke's Magic (1986), Cagney & Lacey (1986), Hunter (1986) and Just the Ten of Us (1988).

TV and movie acting work by Drier became much more sporadic, seeing only an appearance on The Munsters Today (1990), and ten years later on an episode of Jack & Jill (2000), and no known movie acting during the first half of the 1990’s.

The late ‘90s saw minor roles in sci-fi space-ship hijack thriller Velocity Trap (1997), and Storm Trackers, a thriller about a secret military weather control machine gone awry. (1999)

Since this period, as mentioned above, his career has emphasized voice-over work on a 1989 episode of The Burbs, and on such films as Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), American Beauty (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000) Shrek (2001), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), The Shape of Things (2003), Jungle Book 2 (2003), the Lion King 1 1/2 (2004), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Hauru no ugoku shiro (Eng: Howl's Moving Castle) in 2004, and Madagascar (2005).

Drier has also more recently directed television episodes, including an episode of Reba (2003) and Too Late with Adam Carolla (2005).

He also directed a well-received children's musical, Precious Piglet and Her Pals at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks.

President

  • 2005 : Precious Piglet and Her Pals (Theater)

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