Disliked by several staff members and the vast majority of the inmates, Devlin eventually is in a sea of controversy once a city mayor whom he was politically involved with is sent to Oz for conspiring to commit a racially motivated bombing. Genevieve Beecher (Susan Floyd) – Beecher's wife.
A mutual attraction instantly forms between them, and the two eventually exchange confessions of love. Unbeknown to Beecher, however, Keller has betrayed him to Schillinger and the Aryans, who beat him so mercilessly that they break both his arms and legs.
Though Schillinger mentions having her killed, when he later brags of his murders to Mayor Loewen he only mentions Beecher's father and son, implying that he was not involved in Genevieve's death and her death was a suicide.
A former middle class lawyer in denial about his alcoholism, Beecher is convicted of driving whilst intoxicated and vehicular manslaughter after hitting a young girl. Thrown into the deep end in a super-max prison and forced to fend for himself, Beecher quickly learns he is out of his league.
Genevieve BeecherRelativesHolly Beecher (Daughter) Gary Beecher (Son, deceased) Harry Beecher (Son) Harrison Beecher (Father in-law, deceased) Angus Beecher (Brother in-law) Unnamed Mother in-law Unnamed Grandmother in-lawKill Count0Episode Count1Portrayed bySusan Floyd15 more rows
Schillinger arranges for Keller to meet Tobias Beecher, Schillinger's former sex slave, with the intent of gaining his trust and seducing him. A mutual attraction instantly forms between them, and the two eventually exchange confessions of love.
Vernon Schillinger was the main antagonist of Tobias Beecher's storyline, and the primary Aryan inmate featured in Oz....Vernon SchillingerSchillinger the "Proud American".First appearance"The Routine" (episode 1.01)Last appearance"Exeunt Omnes" (episode 6.08)Reason/CauseKilled by Tobias Beecher14 more rows
HankSchillinger, however, thinks Beecher was trying to turn Hank against him like on Beecher did when he "corrupted" Andy, and orders Hank to kidnap both of Beecher's children. Hank Schillinger severs the hand of Beecher's son and mails it to Beecher in Oz. Hank kills Beecher's son before ultimately releasing his daughter.
Keller may be a sociopath, but he's the kind of sociopath who can love. And it turns out that, like a prison-yard version of She's All That with multiple fractures, even though his devotion started as a prank … he really developed feelings for Beecher.
Similar to Brooke's involvement with Nathan, her relationship with musician Chris Keller was a one-time thing. After drunkenly bonding with him, the two slept together -- making for a decision Brooke later regretted.
David JohansenOz (TV Series 1997–2003) - David Johansen as Eli Zabitz - IMDb.
6Oz / Number of seasons
8Series overviewSeasonEpisodesOriginally airedFirst aired18July 12, 199728July 11, 199838July 14, 19994 more rows
Beecher's father, Harrison (Edward Herrmann), appeals Keller's death sentence until Winthrop kills him to join the Aryans. Beecher is paroled, inherits his father's law firm, and gets Keller's sentence overturned. However, Beecher is sent back to prison after a lonely Keller arranges for him to get caught buying drugs.
She begins to have sex with guard Len Lopresti. As her execution date nears, Bellinger's ex-husband, Zeke, visits her and offers forgiveness. Angered, she tells him she killed their daughter because she was raped by Zeke's father and Katie was actually Zeke's half-sister.
February 23, 2003Oz / Final episode date
Joey D'Angelo (Goodfella Mike G ) – The man who steps up to take Ortolani's place following his murder. He assists Schibetta in running the kitchen, until he is hospitalised following a beating by the Homeboys. Peter Schibetta (Eddie Malavarca) – Nino's son, sent to Oz for money laundering and extortion.
Eugene Rivera (Nelson Vasquez ) – An officer who was previously a member of a rival gang to El Cid's. He comes to Oz and works in Em City. Hernandez orders Alvarez to blind Rivera, which Alvarez does. Afterwards, Rivera participates in the Sister Pete's victim-offender program with Alvarez.
1, 2, 3, 4. One of the youngest inmates in Oz, Wangler was sixteen when he committed murder and was tried as an adult. Wangler exhibits the qualities of a juvenile delinquent: cocky, hot-headed and sadistic.
George Morfogen. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. An elderly inmate serving life for murder. He was originally sentenced to death, but in 1965, he survived a botched electric chair execution when the power went off and his sentence was commuted.
Governor James Devlin ( Željko Ivanek) – A right-wing politician, Governor Devlin represents all extreme mechanisms of law and order to make society "crime free." He passes several acts to minimize prisoner rights and increase law enforcement spending. Disliked by several staff members and the vast majority of the inmates, Devlin eventually is in a sea of controversy once a city mayor whom he was politically involved with is sent to Oz for conspiring to commit a racially motivated bombing.
A deleted scene sees him murdered by a member of the Russian Secret Police. Guillaume Tarrant ( Lothaire Bluteau) – An inmate sent to Oz for destroying a statue in a museum. A diminutive man, he is sponsored by Hoyt, who promptly mugs him. He is also frequently picked on by Wangler, Pierce and Poet.
The Irish are perhaps the smallest gang in Oz based on membership, mostly driven by the schemes of Ryan O'Reily. As a gang they might appear to be insignificant, but Ryan O'Reily manages to factor into most major plots throughout the series.
When the police discover that Schillinger's other son, Hank, had been murdered and that the hit was ordered by an inmate from within Oz, Keller takes responsibility for the crime to protect Beecher and his family . He is then sent to Massachusetts to stand trial for this murder.
In the season premiere, Keller was shot in the shoulder and Beecher pulls him to safety and his shooter kills two inmates and one guard, setting the alarm; the shooter then kills himself.
However, during the final fight scene, Keller switches Beecher's knife with a real one. Beecher stabs Schillinger unintentionally during a fight scene, thinking the knife in his hand is a prop. Keller claims to have no idea how a real knife got onto the set. Schillinger's death is considered an accident.
Keller later tries to seek Beecher's forgiveness, but Beecher rebuffs him, refusing to have anything further to do with him unless he confesses his role in the attack to the authorities. Keller complies, but Beecher still rejects him. Keller begins attending counseling sessions with the prison psychiatrist, Sister Peter Marie, as a ploy to win back Beecher's favor. During the meetings, Keller first tries to make her feel ineffective as a psychiatrist; then through various sexual provocations, forces her to question her commitments as a nun. When Sister Pete discovers that his confessions are insincere, she too turns her back on him.
Shortly after Beecher leaves the room, Keller makes an anonymous telephone call to tip off the police, getting Beecher caught and sent back to Oz. Furious, Beecher rejects Keller once and for all. At this time, Beecher is offered a deal from the FBI to set Keller up and he seriously considers it.
38 Episodes. Portrayed by. Christopher Meloni. "Oz didn't make you a bitch, you were born one.". ― Chris Keller [src] Christopher "Chris" Keller was an inmate and the central character featured in Tobias Beecher 's storyline. Portrayed by Christopher Meloni.
Keller briefly allies himself with Ryan O'Reily for protection against the Aryans, who now hate him for becoming Beecher's lover and for turning himself in (as Beecher requested), implicating Schillinger.
Previously known for playing Bill Paxton’s torturous older brother character in the Weird Science TV show and for a stint on Homicide: Life On The Street (which was based on David Simon’s book), Lee Tergeson played Tobias Beecher, a well-to-do lawyer who ends up serving hard time for killing a nine-year-old girl while drunk driving. Tergeson has stayed busy in the nearly 15 years since the show’s conclusion, with recurring roles in Desperate Housewives, The Big C, The Americans, The Strain, Longmire, and Defiance to name just a few. He also starred as Scribe in Simon’s miniseries Generation Kill about an embedded reporter in the Iraq war and the soldiers he travels with.
With only a handful of acting credits to his name at the time, J.K. Simmons found his breakout role with Neo-Nazi Vernon Schillinger, one of the most powerful and feared inmates in Oz. He’s moved onto big screen roles in movies like Juno and Whiplash, the latter of which won him an Academy Award.
Tergeson has stayed busy in the nearly 15 years since the show’s conclusion, with recurring roles in Desperate Housewives, The Big C, The Americans, The Strain, Longmire, and Defiance to name just a few.
A beloved character actor who cut his teeth on the crime drama procedural NYPD Blue, Christopher Meloni played Chris Keller on Oz, a manipulative sociopath who carried on an affair with fellow inmate Tobias Beecher.
He was most recently cast as Dean in the new TNT series Claws. A natural performer, Perrineau branched out into music in 2007, releasing his first single “Stay Strong,” with proceeds going directly to the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain injury.
Born in 1931, Rita Moreno’ s career has spanned more than seven decades across TV, stage, and film. In Oz, she played Sister Pete, an idealistic nun who worked as a drug counselor, aligning herself with Tim McManus’ ideals of rehabilitation.
One of HBO’s first major forays into original programming, the prison drama Oz premiered a little more than 20 years ago in 1997, and ran for six seasons (which you can stream anytime on HBO Now ). Taking full advantage of the freedoms that a premium cable channel allowed, Oz showed an unflinching view of what life was like inside ...
He is helped through his treatment and chemotherapy by Dr. Gloria Nathan, Oz's chief physician. O’Reily falls in love with her and is so overcome with jealousy of her husband that he tells his mentally handicapped brother, Cyril, who is on the outside to kill Dr. Nathan's husband.
Ryan O'Reily is a main character in the television series Oz. He was portrayed by Dean Winters from 1997 to 2003.
He pays inmate Glen Shupe to lie to Cyril about Chen planning to rape Fitzgerald. Cyril and Ryan attack the two, and Cyril stabs and kills Chen while defending his brother, and stands trial for murder. The O’Reily family decides that Cyril is too mentally scarred to live, so they do not oppose his trial.
Furious, O’Reily joins forces with Tobias Beecher and Chris Keller, two other inmates who are looking to get even with Schillinger.
O’Reily forces Shupe to tell the truth to Cyril's attorney Arnold Zelman, who is unable to get him to testify. Shortly afterward, Meehan dies from a brain embolism, Ryan then washes the body in the morgue, reading a piece from the bible out of respect for Meehan.
O’Reily is an Irish-American sociopathic hoodlum originally sentenced to 12 years to life for killing two people while driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, then 40 to life after confessing to a murder he had his brother, Cyril, commit. Before he was arrested for his original crime he was running a street gang of Irish-American hoodlums called the Bridge Street Gang, with Cyril as his lieutenant/bodyguard. When his brother is permanently brain-damaged in a fight with a rival at a funeral, Ryan, blaming himself, goes on a drug and alcohol-fueled rampage throughout the city.
Meanwhile, the prison administrators hire a new CO supervisor, Sean Murphy. Murphy and O'Reily bond over the Spanish Armada myth of the Black Irish and develop a kind of friendship. When Murphy organizes a boxing tournament, O’Reily enters Cyril.
With shows such as Six Feet Under and The Sopranos, premium cable network HBO has a deserved reputation for edgy, quality drama. But it was on this day ten years ago that the network premiered Oz, its first one-hour dramatic television series. Set within a maximum security prison somewhere in the United States, the prison drama broke boundaries with its violence, profanity and nudity, as well as with its diverse and multi-racial cast of strongly imagined characters. Tom Fontana, writer and executive producer for Oz, recently spoke with AfterElton.com about the show and its place in television history.
Within the show, other people whom you might have expected to be against the Beecher/Keller romance were the characters of Sister Peter Marie Reimondo (played by Rita Moreno ), and Father Ray Mukada (played by out actor B.D. Wong ), a Catholic nun and priest respectively, who served the prison population. In fact, both characters were sympathetic to the relationship, and even went out of their way to arrange for the lovers to meet. Speaking about their attitudes, Fontana (who served as Executive Producer on the 2004 documentary In Good Conscience, a film about the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality) says that:
Premiering before Will & Grace or Queer As Folk, and running until 2003, Oz would arguably go on to do better than either of them in showing the full spectrum of male sexuality. The drama convincingly portrayed the myriad ways sexuality could be expressed between men whether gay, bi or straight. It would also give viewers one of television’s most memorable male/male relationships in the long-running, powerful and complex romance between prisoners Chris Keller (played by Christopher Meloni) and Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen).
Keller and Beecher’s romance certainly ran the emotional gamut. And, pre- Queer As Folk, it may have been more fully-realized physically than any other male/male relationship on American television. But in a show that never flinched from showing violent rapes between men, as well as several fairly graphic (if aggressive) male/female couplings, it was striking that Beecher and Keller never got much beyond kisses.
A television crew comes to Oz to film the prisoners' daily lives, headed by Jack Eldridge, a reporter who once reported on Irish gang activity in general and the O'Reilys in particular. This report exposed them as criminals to their mother, who was emotionally devastated upon finding out. In his interview with Eldridge, O'Reily gets some revenge on Eldridge by refusing to give any information about Adebesi's death.
Season 5. O’Reily's mother turns herself in and Governor James Devlin reduces her charge to a two-year community service sentence at Oz. Inmate Li Chen arrives shortly afterward, and Jia Kenmin plots with him to put the O’Reily brothers on death row.
Adebisi agrees to the deal. O'Reily smashes a glass jar, then grinds up the broken glass, which he and Adebisi place in Schibetta's food. Schibetta begins having stomach pains later but shrugs them off. O'Reily meeting with Ross to discuss the situation with Said and Schibetta.
When O'Reily returns from the hole, he has detoxed from heroin, which doesn't last long as he starts using the remainder of his supply with Beecher. Meanwhile, Adebisi informs his new lieutenant, Kenny Wangler, that he desires to kill Schibetta and O'Reily and take over the drug trade entirely.
Later, O'Reily visits Beecher to see how his appeal is coming along and notices Beecher had been crying. O'Reily offers Beecher some drugs and the two get high. O'Reily would later offer Beecher heroin, which Beecher would get an addiction to and become O'Reily's first customer in the drug trade.
Highly intelligent and completely ruthless, O'Reily survives in Oz by manipulating everyone around him, and working with the most dangerous inmates using a variety of inmate gangs to get whatever he wants; series creator Tom Fontana has likened him to Iago, the villain of Shakespeare's Othello.
O’Reily then admits his guilt in Preston Nathan's murder so that he can remain in Oz to protect Cyril. McManus then informs him he will be brought up on charges for ordering the murder of Preston Nathan and will have 40 years added onto his sentence.
Chapter 5: Life in the Big House. As Oz’s first season unfolded, the cast and crew became comfortable inside this prison of their own making. Largely left to their own devices by HBO, a familial atmosphere flourished on set that was nourished and encouraged by Warden Fontana.
Eamonn Walker as Kareem Said on Oz. (Credit: HBO) Kirk Acevedo: Originally Tom wrote Miguel Alvarez for someone else, and then I came in and I got the gig. I remember the exact audition: There were five actors ahead of me, and the scene was an emotional scene where you had to go in and scream and yell about some s***.
And shooting in New York, Fontana tapped into a deep reservoir of veteran actors and fresh faces.
Harold Perrineau as Augustus Hill Oz. The role was played by Mos Def in the original presentation (Credit: HBO) Terry Kinney: Tom had cast me in a Homicide episode [Season 4’s “Map of the Heart”], and he said that he’d always wanted to make up for that, because it was an indecipherable episode.
That’s the date that Tom Fontana’s sprawling prison drama, Oz, premiered on HBO, setting a channel best known for replaying movies and the occasional cult comedy series like The Larry Sanders Show on a course to becoming a dramatic powerhouse that lived up to its famous tagline: “It’s Not TV. It’s HBO.”.
Oz was more violent, and that’s saying a lot compared to The Sopranos. Even in The Sopranos, you didn’t see people get killed a lot; they got killed off-camera. In Oz, the violence and stuff like that happened right in front of your face. The other shows were maybe easier on the stomach for people.