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PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY
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| I was born in a little village called Brooklyn in the great city of New York on April 20th weighing 7lbs. 7oz. As best my mom remembers it was around 7 p.m. My birth certificate didn’t report the time and the Bethel Hospital in Brownsville, Brooklyn was demolished decades ago. So astrological charts are meaningless to me. Half say, I am Aries, the rest Taurus so maybe I’m on the cusp with a cow in Kansas. If I feel I need to look, I pick the best one and get on with the day. | |
| I moved from Brooklyn at age six to Queens, another borough of New York City. The area was called Kew Gardens. The only other person I know who lived there, although I didn’t know him at the time, was Jerry Springer. So I thought it was serendipitous when I got to play him in Jerry Springer the Opera. Which opened at the Royal National Theatre in London, 2004. | |
| On my ninth birthday my family moved to Long Island N.Y. My brother Elliot was five and my sister Debi was eleven months old. The town was called Valley Stream and although it was only thirty minutes from Brooklyn it seemed like a farm to a kid from street gangs. Our house had a back yard with fruit trees and a front lawn that ran to the street without pavement. School was all day instead of triple session. (In Queens we split the day into three two-hour sessions because of over-crowding). Fourth grade was catch up time for me. My teacher Mrs. Earl said, ‘you passed by the skin of your teeth’. (She lived across the street) Lucky me. | |
  I
attended Memorial Junior High and then Central High School .I won a Regents Scholarship to College but I knew after three hours of pre-law it was not for me. I had worked for a beauty supply after school and stayed with it for a couple of years. I was even offered a partnership but I dreamed of bigger things. I took a writing class and though my existential writing was therapeutic, basically it was depressing and I was lost. I wanted more out of life. I wanted to be in the movies! |
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| 1965 | I auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and got accepted after doing the famous scene from Hamlet, and the Sakini role from Tea House of the August Moon. To tell the truth, I had never acted in a school play or even seen a play in my life. I did see Marlon Brando play the part in the movie of Tea House. He was my hero as far as acting was concerned, always will be. On the Waterfront is still my favourite movie. |
| 1967 | Two years later I graduated the Academy but have to say I didn’t learn much about film. It was more geared to stage. But I knew I had made a good life change. Film was what I wanted. I was also attending acting classes at the Actors Studio. We put on a production of The Crucible for Lee Strasburg, who critiqued us afterwards. He was tough. More so on the director than the actors. I told myself I would give it two years, two years to get my movie. |
| 1968 |
 I
auditioned for a dinner theatre production of ‘The Rainmaker’. I
did an imitation of Burt Lancaster playing Starbuck. The director
said ‘good Burt, but you’d be a better Jimmy Curry’. So I had my
first professional theatre job. Only before each show the actors
had to serve dinner to the audience, then change to perform after
the tables were cleared. It’s an experience let me tell you. I remember
someone in the audience asking for more coffee in the middle of
my emotional breakdown speech. With or without … |
| 1969- | I made the rounds of New York and
worked as a waiter like thousands before me and thousands still do.
I drove delivery trucks and baked bagels. You do what you gotta do
and make the break happen cause nothing puts on the brakes like waiting
for breaks. I got my first agent by picking two names off a lobby
list at the William Morris Agency. I called one agent and told him
the other agent said he must see me. It worked. The agent got me an
audition for ‘Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?’ I had several call-backs
for the lead role. Inches away from the lead on Broadway. As luck
would have it, one actor beat me out. His name was Al Pacino. The
producers were impressed with my work and gave me another role and
I understudied Al’s role as well. We became friends but the play,
for which Al won the Tony award, closed a week after opening. I never
got to play the part. |
| Starting out as an actor is tough
stuff but a stroke of good luck was meeting two people who are still
in my life. Renee Valente was the head of casting for Columbia Pictures/Screen
Gems and the other was her assistant, Rachel. They were a port in
a storm, kind and helpful. When Columbia closed the N.Y. office and
moved them to Los Angeles I looked them up a few months after Tiger
closed, auditioned and landed my first lead in prime time TV. Another
lucky stroke, an LA casting agent had seen me on Broadway and had
made notes on my performance. That led to the lead in an episode of
MGM’s new series; Medical Center. I returned to N.Y.C. to audition for ‘Lovers and Other Strangers’. The timing was right. I got the lead in my first movie with Diane Keaton, Bea Arthur, and Gig Young, who had just won the Oscar for best actor in They Shoot Horses Don’t They? What an experience! I had what I wanted, the lead in a movie within two years! Life is good! |
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| 1970 | After Lovers and Other
Strangers, I went back to Los Angeles and rented the most amazing
place; a monk’s cell in an old monk’s dorm that a monastery had sold
off to a private owner. For a guy from Brooklyn this was like a Paris
artists’ pied-à-terre. It was on Vista Del Mar, under the Hollywood
sign and filled with artists, actors and musicians. After that I went to Venice to make my second feature, Jennifer On My Mind. This was my first trip to Europe. En-route to Venice I stopped in London for the first time. Then travelled to Amsterdam and on to Venice. After finishing the Venice part of the shoot, swimming across the Grand Canal. I returned to finish the movie in NYC. With Typhoid Fever. Robert Deniro worked on the film for a few days as a cab driver. We ate Chinese food after work and tried to figure out if the film was a comedy or a drama. The critics had the same problem. |
| My next film came with a knock on the door of my monk’s cell. Lovers and Other Strangers had been released in Europe and cult director Dario Argento wanted me to be the lead in his new movie. His father, Salvatore came to find me for Dario’s third film, Four Flies on Grey Velvet. He handed me the script and told me his son Dario was waiting for me in Rome. Working with Dario in Italy was spectacular. One day, Dario informed me of a special opportunity; I was to have a private tea with Federico Fellini on the set of Roma. I stayed in Italy almost a year and returned to London on way home. | |
| 1971 |  My
first television movie; The Impatient Heart, written by Alvin Sargent,
(Spiderman ll) and directed by John Badham, (Saturday Night Fever).
TV movies really were movies made for television then. Quality writers,
directors and actors were making films in twenty-eight days instead
of the months or years a feature would normally take. On this one,
I worked with Carrie Snodgrass who recently passed away (2004 - RIP).
At the time she was nominated for best actress in Diary of a Mad Housewife.One day after filming on the Santa Monica Pier, Carrie asked me if I liked Neil Young, I said, ‘Yeah!’ I raced us to his concert downtown L.A. Not knowing Carrie was his special guest. We sat with him in his dressing room while he warmed up and practically on stage while he performed. He came back to the set with us and hung out on set for days. After the shoot I rented my motor home dressing room, drove up to his ranch and hung out some more. |
| 1972- |  Then
back to Los Angeles and lots of television work. I was hiding out
with friends in Mexico when my agent tracked me down and sent a message.
Kim Novak and Tony Curtis Film, Please Come Back! I did, and it was
after ‘Third Girl From the Left’ I had a major change in my life.
Her name was Kim Novak. |
| 1973 | One year later I was living on a ranch and became the last of the Brooklyn Cowboys. Horses, mountains and sunsets were all I needed. Well and Kim. |
| 1974 |
  Eventually,
I drifted to my own ranch in northern Malibu, Deer Springs Ranch;it
was like living in a painting. I really had forty acres and a mule.
Her name was Nubbin, a pure white half Arabian mule, a gift from
Kim. I had fallen in love with Nubbin when I saw her standing in
the foggy pasture. She looked like a Unicorn; her huge ears standing
forward looked like a unicorn’s horn.I left occasionally to make
some television films, ‘Hitchhike’ was shot all up and down the
California Coast, (a disturbed youth on the run), the Civil War
classic remake of ‘Red Badge of Courage’, (first period costume
as a heroic Yankee soldier) and the television musical ‘Queen of
the Stardust Ballroom’ that became a Broadway Musical after the
TV film. Thrillers, period classics, and musicals. These television
movies were the framework of my career. |
| 1975 |  I
stayed on the ranch growing long hair and a beard till my best friend
Andy, dragged me to an acting workshop where I met Lindsay Wagner.
Brought her up to my ranch for our first date and took her home a
month later. Not long after we started going together she got a TV
series called the Bionic Woman. It took more time than the ranch.
Bye Bye ranch. |
| 1976 | Lindsay and I had an
automobile accident that gave her a split lip and me a wire eyebrow.
Late in 1976 we were married and honeymooned in Sun Valley, Idaho.
She was away one day when I landed one of my favourite TV movies:
James Dean. I shaved off my beard, cut my hair and prepared for the
real life role of Bill Bast, James Deans’ college friend and roommate.
Lindsay came home, thought I was an intruder and ran screaming down
the street. I made several television films, guest episodes on TV shows and launched a new anthology called ‘Love Story’ directed by the late, Michael Landon (Bonanza). He was a good director and a great guy. |
 Lindsay
and I hung out with Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall on a Hawaiian holiday.
Between laughing Rob Reiner suggested I try stand-up. By coincidence, my next television movie was Comedy Company, a two and a half-hour film about comedians. It was a great experience to do stand-up and work with a grand master like the late George Burns. I have always felt that’s a way I could have gone. (Might still go?) It wasn’t until one night while performing in Jerry Springer the Opera that I had the opportunity to experience it for real. The electronic keyboard froze and I stood telling jokes to a live audience of 800 for ten minutes. Wow the adrenalin! More Please! |
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| 1977 | ‘FM’. What a great chance to hang out with rock stars. Linda Ronstadt, Reo Speedwagon, Tom Petty, the Eagles, and Jimmy Buffet who invited me to Aspen, Colorado when the film was over. Unfortunately, so was my marriage, it was a very good time to learn how to ski. Mountains are good. |
| 1979 | I was reading in the chalet during a blizzard when I got a call from David Green, an English director. He said make a cup of tea and he read me the entire script over the phone. I said ‘when?’ He said, ‘Now, shoot tomorrow’ and I said ‘where are you?’ He said ‘Hawaii’. I flew in my long underwear from Nevada to Hawaii. Shorts, and flip-flops were all I needed. ‘Vacation in Hell’ was not only a TV film; it was a vacation from divorce in the news. Trapped on a desert island with four beautiful women. Somebody had to do it. |
| 1980 |
More television movies,
Red Alert, Perfect Match, and Between Brothers which gave me a variety
of roles to play; a nuclear security agent, a TV presenter and a
politician.
  Change
of Seasons, one of my favourite film experiences because of Shirley
MacLaine.Although the film itself didn’t receive rave reviews, working with Shirley was fantastic. My acting coach, Eric Morris always told me, ‘don’t act unless you have to’. Between Anthony Hopkins and Shirley MacLaine acting was not necessary. |
| 1981 | Here was another moment of film adventure. The now infamous mile-high love scene with Jacqueline Bisset in George Cukor’s Rich and Famous. Rolling Stone magazine called it one of the ten sexiest scenes in cinema. I have no argument. |
| 1982 | I had an office and development deal with the late producer Julia Philips at Fox Studios for two of my scripts when I heard they were looking for a ‘Michael Brandon’ type on Emerald Point N.A.S. They wanted someone to be a love interest for Maud Adams (Octopussy). So one morning I sailed into the story, a bearded bachelor writer on his huge sailboat with a white German Shepard. Story and budget changes and by afternoon the boat had sunk, the dog died, the beard shaved and instead of a romantic interest for Maud, I became a psychopath stalking her. Maybe it’s time for a series of my own...…Be careful what you wish for. |
| 1983 | I am in London. It rained for the first 28 days but I did say I wanted change. I met Glynis Barber in the Ritz Hotel. She is to play Makepeace. There is more to life than weather. |
| 1984 |
Life is more than good. The second season she loves me too.
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| 1987 |  D
& M comes to a close. It was a phenomenal and amazing experience.
The crew became my family and when someone passed away we all mourned
and if somebody had a baby we broke out the Champagne.My driver Bill was an extraordinary man and I shall always miss him. We worked very hard six sometimes seven days a week, rain or shine and the years went by in a flash. I was sorry when the series ended. Some of the best times of my life. |
| 1988 | I filmed Tales of the Unexpected and flew to Los Angeles and make ‘Rock and Roll Mom’ for Disney with old friend Dyan Canon. I get a call to fly to Todi, Italy to film the prestigious Dennis Potters’ Visitors for the BBC. Surprise! The lady playing my wife is Glynis Barber. Todi is to die for. |
| 1989 | Return to LA to make a pilot for Aaron Spelling called Divided We Stand. It was a great idea, a one hour show about a couple with a child that breaks up and it’s done as two half hour shows back to back, but ABC didn’t think so. While in LA I directed Monsters, introducing my leading lady, Tory Spelling. This was the best part of an otherwise awful year.You have to have them too. |
| Time for change! I meet with a French Producer and Director about four movies to be shot back to back in the South of France. Glynis and I fly to the Cote’ d’ Azur to rent a house. Sometimes in life you realize that you made the right decision. You forewent the security of a steady job and career and it was the cool thing to do. Careers are peaks and valleys? Peak, Peak, Peak! | |
| 1990 |
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| I returned to London to film ‘Care of Time’ with Christopher Lee. Then on November 18th I married Glynis Barber at Camden Council. The same day we married she had to run off after lunch at San Lorenzo to finish the last performance of a Schnitzler Play at the Gate theatre and then we went on a five-week honeymoon to India and that nearly finished me. | |
| 1991 | We moved to Los Angeles. The Gulf War happened and the subject of ‘Care of Time’ was so weirdly coincidental that ITV held it’s airing for a year fearing for the lives of British Hostages in Iraq. I am doing a series called Home Fires directed and written by Bruce Paltrow (RIP). He was an amazing man and this was an equally wonderful show. Kate Burton played my wife. |
| Dynasty – the Reunion. My character has an affair with Heather Locklear’s character and my character’s wife tells Joan Collin’s character. Joan’s character helps my wife’s character kill my business and end the affair. Bitch! | |
| 1992 | My son Alexander is born. There is
nothing like it. If anything else happened that year I can’t remember. |
| 1993 | I made some TV movies and a mini-series
and a Murder She Wrote with Angela Lansbury. I did the pilot of The Marshall produced by Don Johnson in Vancouver and a mini-series in Omaha with Shannon Dougherty and all I wanted was to be home with my family. It’s great to be a dad. |
| 1996 | We sell our Beverly House and just
before we return to London I make a low budget film called The Disappearance
of Kevin Johnson, with Pierce Brosnan and Dudley Moore. The story
was about a man missing in Hollywood. Maybe it's me, Bye Bye L.A. It’s great to be back in the UK. Glynis and I get to work together playing the American Ambassador and his wife in a mini-series called Apocalypse Watch based on the book by Robert Ludlum and then again in a film called Déjà Vu with Vanessa Redgrave directed by our friend Henry Jaglom.  View
clip in Windows MediaView clip in RealPlayer™ |
| 1997 |
The Knock. |
| 1998 | Dark Realm gives me the chance to play a Vampire in an all vampire law firm. Very fang in cheek. |
| I was eating lunch in Holland Park with my friend Johnny Gold when the voice of Fran Drescher broke my glass. ‘Michael Brandon, why haven’t you been on my show?! So I did an episode of the Nanny. Thank you Fran. | |
| While in Los Angeles an episode of JAG. And then my old friend who directed me on Broadway, Michael Shultz hires me for a special episode of Ally McBeal playing D.A. Dawson, which continued as an episode of The Practice playing the same character on both shows. | |
| Florida with my family during my Dad’s last moments. 8th April 1998 | |
| 1999 | My mom passed away. 13th June 1999. I miss them both dearly. |
| Jonathan Creek,View
clip in Windows Media View clip in RealPlayer™ C.I.5 New Professionals, another episode of JAG and D.A. Dawson returns to The Practice. View
clip in Windows MediaView clip in RealPlayer™ |
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| 2000 | Glynis and I celebrate; Ten Years
Married. Stefani Powers and I are well received at our opening at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre for the National Tour of ‘The Adjustment’. |
| 2001 | The Contaminated Man
filmed with Natasha McCelhone and William Hurt in Budapest Hungary.View
clip in Windows Media View clip in RealPlayer™ |
| The Division for Lifetime TV. | |
| 2002 | The Lost Battalion. This film is based on a true story and I played the World War 1 General who sent these soldiers into harms way. I could feel the power in his uniform. |
| Dinotopia. This fantasy series on a mysterious island with a lost civilization complete with talking dinosaurs was seven months in the making and lots of Goulash . | |
| 2003 |
Playing Jerry Springer in the Royal
National Theatre production of Jerry Springer the Opera. |
| ‘Hawking’ A BBC Screen Drama about Stephen Hawking and the Big Bang. I had the wonderful opportunity to play the Noble Prize winner, Arno Penzias, who discovered the three degrees of background radiation that substantiated Hawking’s theory. Filming on set in the day and performing on stage in the evening, playing two fascinating and living people; life and dreams at one. | |
| 2004 |  I
am nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a musical.Jerry Springer the Opera wins the Olivier Award, the Evening Standard Award, the What's On Award and the Critic's Circle Award. That's all of them.
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Hawking nominated for
Best Television Drama by the Monte Carlo Film Festival and the British
Television Bafta Awards. I
am the North American voice of Thomas the
Tank, doing the narration and all the voices for the characters
on the Island of Sodor for Hit Entertainment.View
Clip in Macromedia Flash |
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| 2005 |
Really enjoyed doing Michael Connelly's latest best seller on audio book, The Lincoln Lawyer, also narrating a documentary for the History Channel, 'Roman Vice.' |
| 2006 |
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| 2007 |
A fantastic two part
Trial and Retribution XI - Closure, helping the police look for
this killing monster who was me. Then fantastic fun playing with
Catherine Tate in her second series. give me more more more!
 A
jazz tour with Guy Barker and a fifteen piece orchestra perfoming
Guy's original jazz compositon of Mozart's Magic Flute. I narrated
to Rob Ryan's Mickey Spillane style story intercut with fab music
at the infamous Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London and then major
jazz venues throughout England. We cut the album, The Amadeas Project.Then some stage work, I was Charlie in Steven Berkoffs' version of On the Waterfront at the Hackney Empire Theatre. Finished the year with a broken foot and landed a role in Casualty wearing my cast. How about that for luck and understanding producers? |
| 2008 |
Started the year off guesting on the remake of 'Bewitched'. the classic American series made for the UK to air in the fall. Then Hello this is Michael Brandon on City Talk 105.9. I have just finished off twelve Saturday nights from 7-8 pm on my own talk radio show for radio city's new talk station City Talk with lots of special guests, and friends, Jackie Collins, Linda Gray, David Soul, Paul Michael Glaser, Guy Barker, Errol Brown, Charlie Webb, and Glynis Barber and good chat with my friend Rob Ryan as cohort. More Jazz with Guy Barker coming up later in the year with ronnie scots and a Billie Holiday Concert for a live BBC radio broadcast in the Cheltenham Town Hall. Then played Les Tremayne the forties radio star in Richard Linklater's new movie 'Me and Orson Welles' starring Zak Efron and Christian Mckay. what's with all the radio thing going on? Must be my voice wants it's own career. So I narrated a documentary for Sky entitled the Mafia in America, running with the Gangster themed films this year and presented on the Luxury Channel trying out Ulitimate Boys Toys. But hey let's talk Daleks. I just finished shooting in Cardiff on Doctor Who? what a blast! |
| So stay tuned and stay
centered. With great respect and good wishes always  |
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