Irving J. Moore
Encyclopedia
Irving Joseph Moore was an American
television director
originally from Chicago, Illinois. He was known primarily for work in two night-time soap opera
s, Dallas
and Dynasty
as well as segments of such other series as Gunsmoke
and Eight Is Enough
.
Moore launched his Hollywood career as a messenger on the Columbia Studios lot and worked his way to assistant director and then to director. His first directing was done on the old western
series Tales of the Texas Rangers
. He also directed episodes during the late 1950s on the sets of two ABC
/Warner Brothers westerns
, Cheyenne
and Sugarfoot
, starring Clint Walker
and Will Hutchins
, respectively. In 1960, he directed six episodes of Mike Connors
's CBS
detective series Tightrope
. He directed various episodes of ABC's Surfside 6
, including the 1960 premiere episode "Country Gentleman" and the second episode of the second season, "The Wedding Guest." Similarly, he directed a few segments of another ABC/WB production, 77 Sunset Strip
. In 1961, Moore worked on three episodes of ABC's The Roaring Twenties
, starring Dorothy Provine
and Mike Road
. In 1966-1967, he directed three segments of NBC's western Laredo
, a spin-off
from The Virginian
and starring William Smith
and Peter Brown
. From 1965-1969, Moore directed twenty-six episodes of Robert Conrad
's unconventional drama with a western setting, The Wild Wild West
. From 1966-1974, he directed fourteen Gunsmoke episodes, his last having been the segment named, prophetically, "Like Old Times". He also directed episodes of the short-lived 1974 Gunsmoke spin-off
Dirty Sally
, starring Jeanette Nolan
. From 1974-1975, Moore directed ten episodes of NBC's Petrocelli
, with Barry Newman
in the title role. In the late 1970s, he directed NBC's The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
From 1977-1981, Moore directed fifteen segments of Dick Van Patten
's hour-long family drama/comedy, Eight Is Enough, the last having been "The Last Little Telethon in Sacramento." From 1978-1991, he directed fifty-two segments of Dallas, his last having been "Designing Women." His best known directing on Dallas was the 1980 episode, "A House Divided", better known for the advertising campaign, "Who Shot J.R.," a cliffhanger
segment which caused viewers through the summer to guess at the culprit who attacked the detested J.R. Ewing
, the Larry Hagman
character.
From 1981-1988, Moore directed fifty-eight episodes of Dynasty, the last having been "A Touch of Sable." He also handled duties of one or a few episodes of such programs as James Arness
's other western, How the West Was Won
and Walter Brennan
's The Guns of Will Sonnett
, both on ABC, and CBS's The Doris Day Show
and Lou Grant
.
In 1983, Moore directed the television movie
, Making of a Male Model
, starring the late Jon Erik Hexum and Joan Collins
, who played Alexis Carrington on Dynasty.
In 1991, Moore's final directing credit was the four-hour ABC miniseries
revival of the Carrington clan of "Dynasty."
Moore died of a heart attack
at the age of seventy-four in Sherman Oaks, California
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
originally from Chicago, Illinois. He was known primarily for work in two night-time soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
s, Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
and Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
as well as segments of such other series as Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
and Eight Is Enough
Eight Is Enough
Eight Is Enough is an American television comedy-drama series which ran on ABC from March 15, 1977 until August 29, 1981. The show was modeled after syndicated newspaper columnist Thomas Braden, a real-life parent with eight children, who wrote a book with the same name...
.
Moore launched his Hollywood career as a messenger on the Columbia Studios lot and worked his way to assistant director and then to director. His first directing was done on the old western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series Tales of the Texas Rangers
Tales of the Texas Rangers
Tales of the Texas Rangers, a western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952...
. He also directed episodes during the late 1950s on the sets of two ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
/Warner Brothers westerns
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, Cheyenne
Cheyenne (TV series)
Cheyenne is a western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season...
and Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot is the title of a TV western that aired from 1957 to 1961. The series featured Will Hutchins as fledgling frontier lawyer Tom Brewster and Jack Elam as sidekick Toothy Thompson...
, starring Clint Walker
Clint Walker
Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
and Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...
, respectively. In 1960, he directed six episodes of Mike Connors
Mike Connors
Mike Connors is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, Mannix. Before that, he had played a crime-fighting investigator, wielding a .38 handgun hidden in his back, in another CBS series, Tightrope.-Early life:Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in...
's CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
detective series Tightrope
Tightrope (TV series)
Tightrope is an American crime drama series that aired on CBS from September 1959 to September 1960. Produced by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in association with Screen Gems, the series stars Mike Connors as an undercover agent named "Nick" who was assigned to infiltrate criminal gangs...
. He directed various episodes of ABC's Surfside 6
Surfside 6
Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered around a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison ; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...
, including the 1960 premiere episode "Country Gentleman" and the second episode of the second season, "The Wedding Guest." Similarly, he directed a few segments of another ABC/WB production, 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
. In 1961, Moore worked on three episodes of ABC's The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties (TV series)
The Roaring 20s is an American drama series that aired on the ABC network beginning on October 15, 1960, and ending on September 21, 1962.-Synopsis:...
, starring Dorothy Provine
Dorothy Provine
Dorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer, actress, and comedienne.-Career:Provine was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, to Virgil and Kathleen Provine. She attended the University of Washington, where she majored in drama. In Washington she handed out prizes for a local television...
and Mike Road
Mike Road
Mike Road is a voice actor and a Warner Bros. television series contract player whose career dates back to the 1950s....
. In 1966-1967, he directed three segments of NBC's western Laredo
Laredo (TV series)
Laredo is an NBC Western television series starring Neville Brand, William Smith, Peter Brown, and Philip Carey as Texas Rangers. The program premiered on September 16, 1965, and the final new episode was broadcast on April 7, 1967. The series was produced by Universal Television.-Synopsis:Laredo...
, a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
from The Virginian
The Virginian (TV series)
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...
and starring William Smith
William Smith (actor)
William Smith is an American actor who has appeared in almost 300 feature films and television productions.Smith began his acting career at the age of 8 in 1942...
and Peter Brown
Peter Brown (actor)
Peter Brown is an American television actor known for his role as Deputy Johnny McKay opposite John Russell in the 1958 Warner Bros. western series Lawman.-Early life:...
. From 1965-1969, Moore directed twenty-six episodes of Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the 1965 CBS television series The Wild Wild West, in which he played the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West, and his portrayal of World War II ace Pappy Boyington in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep...
's unconventional drama with a western setting, The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969....
. From 1966-1974, he directed fourteen Gunsmoke episodes, his last having been the segment named, prophetically, "Like Old Times". He also directed episodes of the short-lived 1974 Gunsmoke spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
Dirty Sally
Dirty Sally
Dirty Sally is a short-lived comedy-drama Western series which ran on CBS from January 11 until April 5, 1974. The program was a spin-off of a two-part 1971 episode of Gunsmoke in which Sally nursed a young gunfighter back to health.-Synopsis:...
, starring Jeanette Nolan
Jeanette Nolan
Jeanette Nolan was an American radio, film and television actress. Nolan was nominated for four Emmy Awards.-Early life:...
. From 1974-1975, Moore directed ten episodes of NBC's Petrocelli
Petrocelli
Petrocelli is an American legal drama which ran for two seasons on NBC from September 11, 1974 to March 31, 1976.-Plot:Tony Petrocelli was an Italian-American Harvard-educated lawyer who grew up in South Boston and gave up the big money and frenetic pace of major-metropolitan life to practice in a...
, with Barry Newman
Barry Newman
Barry Foster Newman is an American film, television, and stage actor, famous for his interpretation of Kowalski in the movie Vanishing Point. He has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy awards.- Life and career :...
in the title role. In the late 1970s, he directed NBC's The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
From 1977-1981, Moore directed fifteen segments of Dick Van Patten
Dick Van Patten
Richard Vincent "Dick" Van Patten is an American actor, best known for his role as patriarch Tom Bradford on the television sitcom Eight is Enough. He began work as a child actor and was successful on the [New York] stage, appearing in more than a dozen plays as a teenager...
's hour-long family drama/comedy, Eight Is Enough, the last having been "The Last Little Telethon in Sacramento." From 1978-1991, he directed fifty-two segments of Dallas, his last having been "Designing Women." His best known directing on Dallas was the 1980 episode, "A House Divided", better known for the advertising campaign, "Who Shot J.R.," a cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
segment which caused viewers through the summer to guess at the culprit who attacked the detested J.R. Ewing
J.R. Ewing
John Ross Ewing, Jr., more commonly known as J. R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, was a central, nefarious figure on the hit CBS television series Dallas . J. R...
, the Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
character.
From 1981-1988, Moore directed fifty-eight episodes of Dynasty, the last having been "A Touch of Sable." He also handled duties of one or a few episodes of such programs as James Arness
James Arness
James King Arness was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke for 20 years...
's other western, How the West Was Won
How the West Was Won (TV series)
How the West Was Won is an American western television series that featured an all star cast that included: James Arness, Eva Marie Saint, Fionnula Flanagan, Bruce Boxleitner, G. W. Bailey, Trisha Noble, William Shatner, Jack Elam, Woody Strode, Anthony Zerbe, Richard Kiley, Lloyd Bridges,...
and Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...
's The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett is a Western television series set in the 1870s which ran on the ABC television network from 1967 to 1969. The series was the first production collaboration between Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas, who would later go on to produce one of ABC's most-memorable hits, The Mod...
, both on ABC, and CBS's The Doris Day Show
The Doris Day Show
The Doris Day Show is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS network from September 1968 until September 1973. In addition to showcasing Doris Day, the show is remembered for its many abrupt format changes over the course of its five-year run...
and Lou Grant
Lou Grant
Lou Grant is a fictional character played by Edward Asner in two television series produced by MTM Enterprises for CBS. The first was Mary Tyler Moore , in which the character was the news director at the fictional television station WJM-TV...
.
In 1983, Moore directed the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
, Making of a Male Model
Making of a Male Model
Making of a Male Model is a 1983 American TV movie starring Joan Collins and Jon-Erik Hexum. It was produced by ABC and released on October 9, 1983.-Plot:...
, starring the late Jon Erik Hexum and Joan Collins
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...
, who played Alexis Carrington on Dynasty.
In 1991, Moore's final directing credit was the four-hour ABC miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
revival of the Carrington clan of "Dynasty."
Moore died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at the age of seventy-four in Sherman Oaks, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.