Kevin Corcoran, 1949-2015: From Shaggy Dogs to The Shield

I forget what movie it was for, but I once saw a trailer that credited Brian Corcoran as “the brother of the kid who plays Moochie.” Kevin Corcoran was so iconic for that role that, when I found out a few minutes ago that he’d died, I had to clarify to my boyfriend that, yes, Kevin Corcoran was Moochie.

He was only on the big screen as Moochie once, in The Shaggy Dog, though he also had the name in The Adventures of Spin and Marty and a handful of other Disney-related TV productions. He was Francis and Arliss, Toby Tyler and Jimmy Bean. He was the All-American Pesky Younger Brother. He costarred with Tommy Kirk five times, Fred MacMurray twice.

After A Tiger Walks, featuring such stars as Brian Keith, Vera Miles, and Sabu, Corcoran essentially retired from acting at the age of fifteen; he only did two movies after that. He went to college at California State University Northridge, studying theatre arts. But when he returned to Disney after his graduation, it was to work behind the camera, not in front of it.

IMDb doesn’t list assistant director credits for movies, so I cannot really give you the scope of his career in his adulthood. Wikipedia mentions his work on Pete’s Dragon, and IMDb does list fourteen TV shows on which he worked as an assistant director, ranging from Baywatch to Quantum Leap to Murder, She Wrote. He worked as a co-producer or executive producer for things ranging from Herbie Goes Bananas to Sons of Anarchy.

Unlike many other child stars, he didn’t ever, apparently, have a rebellious period. He married Laura Soltwedel in 1972; the couple never divorced. (If they had children, quick research does not show it.) He worked quietly behind the cameras for decades, having a hand in all kinds of things. And, yes, he will be remembered by most of us as “the kid who played Moochie.”