Not to be confused with Michael Callen

Michael Callen

Michael Callen was a singer, songwriter, composer, author, and AIDS activist. He was a significant architect of the response to the AIDS crisis in the United States....

.

Michael Callan (born November 22, 1935) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Born Martin Harris Calinieff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, Callan began his career as Mickey Calin, and it was with this name he appeared on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...

 (1954), Catch a Star (1955), and West Side Story (1957–1959).

Callan's film career began in 1959 where he was contracted with Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

 and had roles in two films, They Came to Cordura

They Came To Cordura

They Came To Cordura is a 1959 Western film co-written and directed by Robert Rossen, starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth, and featuring Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Richard Conte, Michael Callan, and Dick York. It was based on a 1958 novel by Glendon Swarthout.-Plot:Tom Thorn is a U.S...

 and The Flying Fontaines. Although he was unable to reprise his West Side Story role of Riff in the film version due to his contract with Columbia, he did dance in the film Gidget Goes Hawaiian

Gidget Goes Hawaiian

Gidget Goes Hawaiian is a 1961 musical romantic comedy film starring Deborah Walley and James Darren. Released by Columbia Pictures, the film is a sequel to the 1959 Sandra Dee "beach movie" vehicle Gidget....

 (1961). His screen credits include The Interns

The Interns (film)

The Interns is a 1962 drama film that starred Michael Callan and Cliff Robertson. This film is a medical melodrama that presages many similar TV programs to follow. It centers around the personal and professional conflicts of young medical interns under the tutorage of senior surgeons, Telly...

, The New Interns, with Barbara Eden

Barbara Eden

Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...

, Mysterious Island

Mysterious Island (1961 film)

Mysterious Island is a 1961 film released by Morningside Productions. Based very loosely upon the novel The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, the film was produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Directed by Cy Endfield, it was released through Columbia Pictures...

 (1961), The Victors

The Victors (film)

-Overview:The film follows a group of U.S. soldiers through Europe during World War II, from Britain in 1942, through the fierce fighting in Italy and France, to the uneasy peace of Berlin. It is adapted from a collection of short stories called The Human Kind by British author Alexander Baron,...

 (1963), Cat Ballou

Cat Ballou

Cat Ballou is a 1965 comedy/Western film which tells the story of a woman who hires a famous gunman to protect her father's ranch, and later to avenge his murder, but finds that the man she hires is not what she expected...

, (1965) and later Leprechaun 3

Leprechaun 3

Leprechaun 3 is a 1995 slasher/black comedy film. It was the first direct-to-video in the Leprechaun series. The movie seems to take place after the events of Leprechaun: In The Hood and Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood but before the events of Leprechaun-Plot:In a Las Vegas pawn shop, a decrepit old...

 and Stuck on You.

In 1966, Callan landed the lead role of Peter Christopher in the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 sitcom Occasional Wife

Occasional Wife

Occasional Wife is an American sitcom that aired on NBC on September 13, 1966, and ran until May 9, 1967 . It was originally on NBC's Tuesday night schedule; in the Eastern Time Zone it aired from 8:30-9:00 p.m...

. At the time Callan was married to the former Carlyn Chapman. The young couple lived in Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

 and had two daughters, Dawn Rachel (born ca. 1961) and Rebecca (born ca. 1964). He engaged in a 12-hour day filming schedule with weekends off for the production of the half-hour television series. Callan soon divorced Carlyn and was married for a time to Patricia Harty

Patricia Harty (actor)

Patricia Harty also known professionally as Trisha Hart, is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles in several short-lived television series, Occasional Wife as Greta Patterson, Blondie as the titular Blondie Bumstead, The Bob Crane Show as Ellie Wilcox and Herbie, The Love Bug...

, the actress who played his "occasional wife" in the series.

Additional television credits include Breaking Point, That Girl

That Girl

That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It stars Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City...

, The Name of the Game

The Name of the Game (TV series)

The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for the likes of The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s...

, The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...

, Ironside

Ironside (TV series)

Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...

, Marcus Welby, M.D.

Marcus Welby, M.D.

Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television program that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, and was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell...

, Griff

Griff (TV series)

Griff is a 13-episode ABC crime drama starring Lorne Greene and Ben Murphy, which aired from September 29, 1973, to January 4, 1974. Nine months after the expiration of his nearly 14-year role as Ponderosa Ranch patriarch Ben Cartwright on NBC's Bonanza western series, the Canadian native Greene...

, McMillan & Wife, Barnaby Jones

Barnaby Jones

Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. A spin-off from Cannon, the show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a midseason replacement...

, 12 O'Clock High, Quincy M.E., Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...

, Simon and Simon, Fantasy Island

Fantasy Island

Fantasy Island is the title of two separate but related American fantasy television series, both originally airing on the ABC television network.-Original series:...

, four episodes of Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...

, and eight episodes of Love, American Style

Love, American Style

Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...

. He played Metallo

Metallo

Metallo is a comic book supervillain and cyborg who appears in Superman stories published by DC Comics. Metallo's trademark is his kryptonite power source, which he often uses as a weapon against Superman. His traditional identity is John Corben...

 in Superboy

Superboy

Superboy is the name of several fictional characters that have been published by DC Comics, most of them youthful incarnations of Superman. These characters have also been the main characters of four ongoing Superboy comic book series published by DC....

.

Callan appeared in the Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 Bar Mitzvah Boy

Bar Mitzvah Boy (musical)

Bar Mitzvah Boy is a musical with a book by Jack Rosenthal, lyrics by Don Black, and music by Jule Styne.Based on Rosenthal's award-winning 1976 BBC1 teleplay of the same name, it focuses on young Eliot Green who, filled with apprehension, escapes from the synagogue where he is about to make his...

 in 1987.

External links