Biography

Has made a lucrative living appearing on the side in Japanese commercials.

Studied at the Culinary Institute of America in his "salad" days and was working as a chef when his strikingly hunky looks opened the door for modeling work.

Best known for his role as 1960s rock icon Eddie Wilson in Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) and Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! (1989).

When he is not working on films, he lives full time in Los Angeles, California with his wife Marjolein, a former fashion model.

Has three brothers and six sisters. His father died of leukemia when Michael was about five years old. Michael's paternal grandparents, who were from Quebec, were French-Canadian, and Michael's maternal grandparents were Irish.

[on his favorite movie role] I always say it was Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) because the director had come to me and said, "Listen, if you fuck this up we're gonna fire you. We'll get Rick Springfield, he's waiting to do the role." So there was a tremendous amount of pressure.

[on working with John Carpenter] John is another one of these guys like David Lynch where nobody questioned or added or had anything to say except "Yes John." That's very comforting for an actor to be working for a director who knows exactly what he wants.

[on director Walter Hill] I think Walter is a writer at heart. Writers aren't always that good at communicating in person. He's also a tough son-of-a-bitch. He's like a cowboy. His director's chair was made out of leather and on the back of it read "Lone Wolf". He used to frequent gun clubs and he wasn't a very delicate guy. I can remember on Streets of Fire, we were doing some ADR for the film. We were doing a love scene. When they said, "We need to ADR the love scene." I really freaked out. I had never done a love scene before Streets of Fire. I was really a new actor, and I really needed help to get through it. I panicked, and the producer on Streets of Fire, Joel Silver, called Walter and somehow persuaded him to come over and direct me through the ADR. Streets of Fire was a big picture for me, and I was overwhelmed. I think that bothered Walter. I think he thought that I was a needy guy. He was used to working with actors who had experience like Nick Nolte or David Carradine. I've always wondered why Walter has never wanted to work with me again. I think he was too much of gentlemen to tell me that I was too needy at the time.

[on typecasting] You know, I think it's a mistake to not do what Hollywood wants to market you as. Because then they say, "Okay fine, we'll get someone else.".

[on Streets of Fire (1984)] It was a big action movie that they were going to shoot in Hollywood. Eddie and the Cruisers had been made for five million dollars. So that wasn't really a big film budget wise. Streets of Fire was going to be a big studio movie. It had Walter Hill as director and Diane Lane had signed on and that was all I needed.