Every
Princess Has a Royal Villain
Pocahontas’ Villain
David Ogden Stiers
October
31st, 1942
David Ogden Stiers (born October 31,
1942) is an American actor, director, vocal actor, and musician, noted for his
roles in Disney movies, as well as his performances in the television series M*A*S*H
as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III and the science fiction drama The Dead
Zone as Reverend Gene Purdy. He is also known for the role of Attorney Michael
Reston in the Perry Mason TV movies.
Early life
Stiers was born in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Margaret
Elizabeth (née Ogden) and Kenneth Truman Stiers. He attended Urbana High School,
at the same time as film critic Roger Ebert.
He later relocated to Eugene, Oregon, where he graduated from North Eugene High
School and briefly attended the University of Oregon. He later ventured to San
Francisco, where he performed with the California Shakespeare Theater, San
Francisco Actors Workshop, and the improv group The Committee, whose members
included Rob Reiner and Howard Hesseman. Soon after, Stiers studied drama at
The Juilliard School. During his studies, Stiers was mentored by accomplished
theater actor John Houseman and would later join his City Center Acting Company.
Career
Early acting credits
Stiers first appeared in the Broadway production The
Magic Show in 1974 in the minor role of Feldman. Later his early credits
include The mary Tyler Moore Show, Kojak, and Rhoda. Stiers also appeared in
the pilot of Charlie’s Angels as the team's chief back-up.
M*A*S*H (1977–1983)
In 1977, Stiers joined the cast of the now iconic CBS-TV
sitcom M*A*S*H. As Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, Stiers filled the void
created by the departure of actor Larry Linville's Frank Burns character. In
contrast to the buffoonish Burns, Winchester was a well-spoken and talented
surgeon who presented a different type of foil to Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce
and Mike Farrell's B.J. Hunnicutt. Burns usually served as the butt of
practical jokes instigated by Hawkeye or B.J., and his surgical skills were
often harshly criticized. Charles, however, presented a challenge to his
colleagues' displays of irreverence because his surgical skills could match or
even outshine theirs; his aristocratic manner and aversion to the puerile
behavior served as the target for his fellow surgeons' barbs and jokes. At
times, however, Winchester could align himself with Hawkeye and B.J. and held
considerable admiration for CO Col. Sherman T. Potter. For his portrayal of the
pompous but nonetheless multidimensional Boston aristocrat, Stiers received two
Emmy Award nominations.
Other television work
Following the completion of M*A*S*H, Stiers
expanded his work on television with regular guest appearances on North and
South, Star Trek: The Next Generation; Murder She Wrote; Touched By An Angel; Wings;
and Frasier, along with a recurring role in Season 1 of Two Guys and a Girl as
Mr. Bauer. In 1984, he portrayed United States Olympic Committee founder, William
Milligan Sloane in the NBC miniseries, The First Olympics: Athens, 1896.
He also had guest appearances on ALF and Matlock. He appeared in two
unsuccessful television projects, Love & Money and Justice League of
America (as the Martian Manhunter). In 2002, Stiers started a recurring role as
the Reverend Purdy on the successful USA Network show The Dead Zone with Anthony
Michael Hall. In 2006, he was cast as the recurring character Oberoth in Stargate
Atlantis. Stiers also appeared in several Perry Mason made-for-TV movies in the
1980s as District Attorney Michael Reston.
Film work
Stiers's early films included Jack Nicholson’s Drive, He
Said and the George Burns comedy Oh, God! He followed up with roles in Harry’s
War, Better Off Dead, The Man With One Red Shoe, The Accidental Tourist, Iron
Will, Doc Hollywood, Jungle 2 Jungle, and Krippendorf’s Tribe. During the
1990s, Stiers joined Woody Allen ensemble casts in Another Woman, Shadows and
Fog, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, and The Curse of the Jade
Scorpion. Stiers has provided his vocal talents for a number of Disney movies,
including Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, and Lilo and Stitch. He also voiced
the character Kamaji in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away and the engineer Piccolo
in Porco Rosso. His most recent film appearance was in the 2001 film The
Majestic, with Jim Carrey.
Vocal work
Stiers has provided voice work for dozens of film and
television projects. His first work was on one of George Lucas’ earliest films,
the critically acclaimed THX 1138, in which he was incorrectly billed as
"David Ogden Steers". Stiers has voiced PBS documentary films such as
Ric Burns’ project New York: A Documentary Film and several episodes of the
documentary television series The American Experience, including ansel Adams
(2002), also directed by Ric Burns. In 1992, he voiced Mr. Piccolo in the
animated English-dubbed version of Porco Rosso. He has collaborated with Disney
on eight animated features, such as Beauty and the Beast (as Cogsworth, also
opening narration), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (as the Archdeacon), Pocahontas
(as Governor Ratcliffe and Wiggins), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (as Mr.
Harcourt), and Lilo and Stitch (as Jumba Jookiba). He also lent his voice to
the direct-to-video Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003) as the Penguin. He
also voiced Gryzlikoff in Darkwing Duck and Mr. Jolly in Teacher’s Pet. He also
voiced the king and prime minister in a short film, The Cat That Looked at a
King, in 2004. In Hoodwinked (2005), the animated movie partly based on Little
Red Riding Hood, Stiers voiced the role of Nicky Flippers, the frog detective
dispatched to Granny's house. He voiced Pop's father, Mr. Maellard, in the
animated TV series Regular Show, which debuted in 2010.
Stiers has also lent his voice to several video games,
including Icewind Dale, Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, as
Jeff Zandi in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, and as Esher in Myst V: End of Ages.
Music
Stiers is the associate conductor for the Newport
Symphony Orchestra and the Ernest Bloch Music Festival. He has guest conducted
over 70 orchestras around the world, including the Oregon Mozart Players, the
Vancouver Symphony, the Yaquina (Ore.) Chamber Orchestra, as well as orchestras
in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto.
No comments:
Post a Comment