S T A T S

A B O U T

"Lanky comic actor, writer and musician whose frequently goofy characters can manage to be just the slightest bit cool, and whose occasional cool, mature characters always seem just a bit goofy."
-hollywood.com bio

That's about Michael in a nutshell. In extension, he was born Michael John McKean on October 17th, 1947, he's the son of a record executive (and co-founder of Decca Records)Gilbert McKean and a secretary. Ruth McKean, the middle child and only boy in a family of three, who grew up in Long Island. Michael occasionally wrote liner notes for his father as a teenager - he also picked up the guitar at the age of fourteen and throught his teens and twenties vascilitated between persuing a musical career and one as an actor, though as a child he had planned to become a cowboy star. He'd decided to become an actor after seeing British actor and comedian Stanley Holloway performing in an one man show in New York City. Initially deciding on career as a stage director, he went on to Carnagie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, which he attended for a year (Michael would do two more years at NYU before dropping out of college) It was there that he and fellow Mellon drop-out and best friend David L. Lander developed characters which would last them for a decade. The two soon moved to LA, where they struggled while performing in the radio/stage impovisational group The Credibility Gap.

Ultimately, Lander and McKean were fortunate enough to be invited to a party (through Lander's friendship with Penny Marshall) where they would be forced to test their improvisational mettle. Michael had, according to Lander "Six bucks in the bank," and his wife Susan was pregnant with their first son, Colin. It was Rob Reiner who instructed them to do "them" for the assemblage - "them" being Leonard "Lenny" Kosnowski and Anthony "Squiggy" Squigliano, two foul-mouthed greasers developed by McKean and Lander when they were in college. Penny's brother Garry was in the proccess of putting together the period sitcom "Laverne and Shirley", and Penny thought the show needed more funny characters - thanks to their impromptu audition the twosome were remembered and offered writing jobs (they were also offered jobs as straight men for the two leads, which wasn't appealing to either actor).

McKean and Lander wrote themselves into the show as the Lenny and Squiggy characters - Squiggy becomming the German Andrew Squiggman to balance the disproportionally Italian cast - and, like it or not (the producers didn't) the two characters became cult figures and one of the show's main draws.

Laverne and Shirley was a tumultuous experience for everyone involved - backstage strife and political games were played night and day. During this period, McKean became a father twice over and, alongside Lander, launched the mock-band "Lenny and the Squiggtones", where the two actors sang as their characters from the series. The band went on a stateside tour during a summer hiatus and recorded a live album at LA's the Roxy. McKean also wrote music for "Laverne and Shirley" and served as co-ordinatator for the "Laverne and Shirley Sings" album.

As the show limped on its last legs toward its eighth season, McKean had it put into his contract that he might be able to be absent for most of it - he was needed on the set of a new improvisational mockumentary being filmed by Rob Reiner. It wouldn't be McKean's first film; he had small parts appearing alongside Lander in the films "Used Cars"and Steven Spielberg's "1941", appeared as part of the Credibility Gap in "Cracking Up", and had his first starring role in the Marshall-produced soap opera parody "Young Doctors In Love". None had been huge financial hits, and this Spinal Tap project - featuring semi-known actors as it was - seemed to bes a risk on everyone's parts.

That mockumentary, "This is Spinal Tap", launched the titular band and McKean into infamy. It's widely recognized as a pioneering influence in comedy and is permanently preserved among such landmarks as "Citizen Kane" and "Birth of a Nation" on the National Film Registry. On release, it flopped at the box office but through word of mouth and midnight showings became a surprise cult hit over time as speculation raged over which big-name metal band might be the source material behind the "Tap" charatures.

The three actors - McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer - behind the band launched a nationwide arena tour to capitalize on the fame brought by the movie - to entertain themselves, they created the three-piece acoustic folk trio "The Folksman" as an opening act - and were nearly booed offstage at their own shows.

After hoopla surrounding the band wound down, McKean's career branched out. He did movies such as "DAARYL" and "Light of Day" and tv shows such as "Dream On", where he had a reccuring role as Gibby Fiske. For much of the 1980's, McKean could be found everywhere and everywhere on the dial, from HBO's comedic serial "Sessions" to the big-screen sequel "Short Circuit 2." He also co-wrote and co-starred in the 1989 Kevin Bacon movie "The Big Picture".

After taking a supporting role in the TV series "Grand", Michael became the oldest actor to ever join the regular cast of Saturday Night Live In 1994. After two seasons with the show, Michael once more began commuting between the big screen and the small screen. He portrayed the character Morris Fletcher on four episodes of The X-Files and had a reccuring role as the same character on the spin off series "The Lone Gunmen". He had a reccuring role on "Tracy Takes On" as Barry. He had roles in such varrying movies as "Coneheads" and "Edie And Penn" and such TV series as "Caroline In The City" and worked with directors as different as Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorcese. After an early-90's divorce from Susan, in 1999 he married actress Annette O'Toole (Smallville, Superman III), who would also become his composing and writing partner.

The '00's have been a very active time for Michael. He had a talk show with Comedy Central, "Uncomfortable Close With Michael McKean", he co-starred with Martin Short as bandleader Adrien Van Vorhees on the short-lived "Prime Time Glick". He became a regular player in Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, appearing in "Best In Show", ressurrecting his Folksman character in "A Mighty Wind", and appearing in "For Your Consideration". He and O'Toole co-wrote a love song, both for one another and AMW - "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow" resulted in an Oscar nomination and a Grammy nomination for Best Song From a Motion Picture for the partnership (The song "A Mighty Wind" would win McKean his first Grammy award, alongside writing partners Guest and Scherer).

More recently, Michael's returned to the theatre, taking over the role of Edna Turnblad in the musical "Hairspray", playing off-Broadway in Woody Allen's "A Secondhand Memory", essaying a supporting role in a popular production of "The Pajama Game" (that of Hines, for which he was turned down in a high school production in his youth) and "Love Song" in the West end of London. He continues to appear on TV - most recently as Perry White on "Smallville".

In November of 2006, Michael appeared on Celebrity Jeopardy for the second time (he also appeared on Celebrity Rock N Roll Jeopardy and a Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament in 1996) - he made headlines by defeating the Bush Administration's Secretary of Education in the final round.

In the summer of 2007, Spinal Tap performed at the LiveEarth concert in London. They did three songs: "Big Bottom," "Stonehenge," and "Hotter than Hell." He opened in a production of Harold Pinter's "The Homecomming" on December 13th in NYC (pushed back due to the stagehand's strike from the 8th) and appeared in a Hollywood Bowl production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" that August 3-5th with Reba McEntire. His fall pilot, "The Thick of It", a political satire developed and directed by Christopher Guest from a British comedy, was rejected by ABC for the fall season.

Currently, Michael has several projects in the can, including recently-released "The Grand." He just wrapped up a run onstage in a revival of the Harold Pinter play "The Homecomming", and will appear this June (through August) onstage at the Steppenwolf Theatre's world premire of "Superior Doughnuts" in Chicago. He's also got a role on Woody Allen's latest picture, which is in post-production.

Due to Michael's constant busy-ness, to keep up with TV appearences, check out his IMDB listing and TV Schedule.

"(Regret) is just a big time-waster...and I'd rather be swimming." - Michael, Onion A.V. Club Interview.

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Michael's TV Schedule
@ Hollywood.com
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