Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor of stage and screen, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons in the TV series Law & Order. Moriarty, an Irish American was born in Detroit, Michigan the son of Elinor (married and maiden names|née Paul) and George Moriarty, a police sergeant. His grandfather, George Moriarty, was a third baseman, umpire and manager in the major leagues for nearly 40 years. Moriarty attended middle school at Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills before transferring to the University of Detroit Jesuit High School for high school. He then matriculated at Dartmouth College in the class of 1963, where he was a theatre college major. After receiving his degree, he left for London, England, where he enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1973, Moriarty was cast as the egocentric Henry Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly, a film about the unlikely friendship between two baseball teammates – the second being Robert De Niro, a slow thinking catcher who becomes terminally ill.