Michael was born in Chicago and moved to Miami Beach where he went to school. In his teen years he was seen by a local theatrical agent that wanted to represent him, but he wasn't interested in acting “YET”.

 

He finally caught the acting bug in high school and joined the acting class and did community theatre and summer stock as well. Michael decided to make acting his career and wanted the best training available, so he auditioned at The American Academy in New York and Pasadena Playhouse in California. He picked Pasadena and made his way West. The training was three years of intense courses about every aspect of theatre and film. In his last year he co-starred with Leon Ames, Lureen Tuttle and Ben Murphy in Life with Father. A talent agent was in the audience and asked him to sign with them which he did. He was very lucky as he went on many auditions and got everything he read for.

 

His credits include Room 222 the pilot, Run Simon Run an ABC movie of the week starring Burt Reynolds and he played Burt’s Brother, The Flying Nun, Marcus Welby, Myra Breckinridge, The Little People, Bobby Jo And The Big Apple Band, The Brady Bunch, Our Time, Dinah, Shazam, Archer and Comic Book Men.

 

Run Simon Run really was the start of his career as the teen magazines started to run photos of him because kids were writing in asking about him. So, he ended up on the covers of Tiger Beat, Fave, and many more and became the next teen idol of the 70’s.

 

The Little People, his first series, was his launching pad because the show’s ratings were great, and the teen mags got even bigger.

 

After the first season his part was written out and he was unemployed, but not for long. The Brady Bunch called for him to play Marcia's boyfriend in one episode and the fans loved it. Now it was Shazam that came calling and Michael was back on TV in his second series. Shazam was an instant hit because of the young audience that watched Saturday morning TV plus the teen mag readers. It ran its course and was off the air in 1976. During the run Michael was on the road every weekend making personal appearances at auto shows.

 

Michaels career pretty much stopped after that, and it was a total surprise when he was told Warner Bros. had bought the rights to the show and were going to do the DVD. It was a big hit and now Shazam had a rebirth.

 

Archer's creator asked him to be on the show playing an animated version of himself and the character’s name was TV’s Michael Gray and Shazam was brought up many times. He just did one of his first appearances at The Hollywood Show convention and lots of people came to see him and thank him for an enjoyable childhood due to the show. They brought the DVD in to have him sign it and brought their children to meet him as they now were watching Shazam.

 

Next Michael will be appearing in his third Surge of Power movie. Then back on the road doing Comic Con’s.