Barry Moss

Barry Moss was a renowned casting director of theater, film, and television and former child actor. He worked on numerous celebrated projects such as Children of a Lesser God, Grand Hotel, The Who's Tommy, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, and Friday the 13th, among many others.

Moss was born on April 25, 1940, in Los Angeles, California. He attended Fairfax High School in Fairfax, Virginia, and later studied theater arts and direction at University of California, Los Angeles.

After graduation, Moss worked at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.

He then moved to New York to embark on a career as a director -- his field of study at the UCLA.

His first Broadway credit as casting director was on Neil Simon's Chapter Two (1977.)

While working at Mort Schwartz Agency, he met Julie Hughes. In 1981, Moss and Hughes partnered to found Hughes Moss Casting. The partnership turned out to be a success; they got to work on over ninety projects (Broadway plays and musicals). The list includes notable hits like Tony Award-winning plays Children of a Lesser God and Torch Song Trilogy; Tony-winning musicals as Sophisticated Ladies, Nine, Woman of the Year, My One and Only, Black and Blue, Jelly's Last Jam, Grand Hotel, The Who's Tommy and Titanic; West Side Story (1980 revival); How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1995 revival); Sweeney Todd; Crazy For You; and many more.

From 1985 through 1992, Moss was a casting director on The Cosby Show. He got Adam Sandler cast on the show in the recurring role of Smitty.

Moss and Hughes also worked on Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Moss, as a casting director, worked on the following films: Endless Love, the original Friday the 13th, Blood Simple, A Chorus Line, Dominick and Eugene, My Boyfriend's Back, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, and Adam Sandler's Big Daddy and Little Nicky.

Moss was a founding member of The Casting Society of America - a professional society founded in 1982 in Los Angeles that consists of about 550 casting directors working in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Africa.

Following a long illness, Moss died of congestive heart failure at Mount Sinai/Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, New York on 17 June 2014. He was 74.

References:

http://www.castingsociety.com/