जीवनी

Once treated a little girl named Vanessa, who was suffering from the final stages of leukemia, to a very rare, private performance of "Barnum" (which he had been doing at the time) as a special treat for her, even having the theater remove some of the seats to make way for her nurses, hospital bed, and family to come and watch and Michael and the entire cast performed the show just for her. Vanessa, tragically, later died of the disease and even today, he still fondly remembers her.

As the deformed phantom, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" he earned 7 1/2% of the takings.

Was cast for the role of Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly! (1969), by Gene Kelly after auditioning in a 1960s outfit of striped blue pants and a checkered shirt (after changing his clothes numerous times) with a bleeding (from shaving too many times) face and trying to tap dance. Kelly said, "What we are looking for (for Cornelius Hackl) is an attractive idiot. My wife thinks you're attractive, and I think you're an idiot".

As a child, he was a loner, due to girls rejecting him as he was not handsome enough and bullies from his schools making fun of him. So his first real acting began when, as a child, he invented characters and performed all the parts, to make up for being lonely.

Since his divorce from Gabrielle (his former wife), he has admitted to phoning her just to hear her voice. He and Gabrielle are now close friends.

If it had not been for Benjamin Britten (the composer), I wouldn't have been an actor. He gave me belief, self-belief.

Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success, and in some ways it's better to have failure at the beginning of your career, or your life.

[on The Phantom of the Opera (1925)] The passion and drama in the Lon Chaney version is unsurpassable. He was superb, he was superb. I owe a lot to Lon Chaney.

I think one of the best words in the English language is compassion. I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.

[on auditioning for Gene Kelly for a role in Hello, Dolly! (1969)] He said, "Listen kid: What we're looking for is an attractive idiot. Now my wife thinks you're attractive, and I think you're an idiot". And that's how I got the part of the attractive idiot in the film Hello, Dolly! (1969).