Dean Riesner, who began his movie career as a toddler acting with Charlie Chaplin and went on to become a seasoned scriptwriter who dreamed up some of Clint Eastwood’s tough-guy lines, died Aug. 18 at his home in Encino, Calif. He was 83.
Mr. Riesner worked mostly on feature films and in television and was known as a script doctor, a writer who repairs troublesome screenplays, often without screen credit. Yet it was a film short, “Bill and Coo,” that brought him an Academy Award in 1948 for special achievement. Written and directed by Mr. Riesner, it was named for the avian lead actors in a town called Chirpendale who seek to ward off an evil crow.
Mr. Riesner often contributed to Eastwood films and contended that he had thought up Eastwood’s famous line, “Go ahead, make my day,” for the 1976 movie “The Enforcer,” in which it was not used. Eastwood uttered it onscreen seven years later in “Sudden Impact,” a movie on which Mr. Riesner did not work.
Another famous line came in “Dirty Harry,” a 1971 film for which Mr. Riesner rewrote the script. Later, another writer, John Milius, reworked the script again. Both men have claimed credit for the line.
It occurs when “Dirty” Harry Callahan, the character played by Eastwood, appears at the scene of a foiled bank robbery.
Grunting out his words, Callahan says: “Being as this is the .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and could blow your head clean off, you have to ask yourself one question: `Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?”
Mr. Riesner attended Beverly Hills High School and several military schools and UCLA. Connections got him a writing job on “The Fighting 69th” in 1940. It starred Pat O’Brien and James Cagney, and Mr. Riesner, at 19, got screen credit.
After service in the Coast Guard in World War II, he resumed his career as a writer as well as a TV director.
![Members of the Lake Zurich Tree Commission and a host of volunteers planted a heritage white oak tree as part of observance of Arbor Day. The white oak tree is between 8 and 10 years old, currently about 15 feet tall and will likely grow to be more than 70 feet tall, according to event organizers. People gathered in Paulus Park April 27 – behind what is known as the barn community building – to witness the tree planting. “It is a robust group of people today,” said Marisa Boynton, special events recreation supervisor for the village’s Office of Park […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PPN-ArborDayLZ2024-8.jpg?w=620 "Members of the Lake Zurich Tree Commission and a host of volunteers planted a heritage white oak tree as part of observance of Arbor Day. The white oak tree is between 8 and 10 years old, currently about 15 feet tall and will likely grow to be more than 70 feet tall, according to event organizers. People gathered in Paulus Park April 27 – behind what is known as the barn community building – to witness the tree planting. “It is a robust group of people today,” said Marisa Boynton, special events recreation supervisor for the village’s Office of Park […]")
