Trivia

Child musical performer who, at age 9, was an original Walt Disney Mouseketeer (1955-1956). Part of the top Red Team (along with Annette Funicello), he was visible in the "Roll Call" throughout the first season. Let go after the first season in January 1956, Mike would become the first original Mousketeer to die (at age 37).

His specialties were singing, tap dancing, and square dancing. His hobbies included horseback riding, skating, and swimming.

Studied in Hollywood as a child with Mae Murray for ballroom dancing, Louis DaPron for tap and jazz, and Lucille Marshall for both dancing and singing instruction.

His dancing partner after he left the Mickey Mouse Club was Karen Larsen. They specialized in square dancing and ballroom, and once won a couple's trophy at the Palladium in the waltz competition.

Once performed in a revue at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Hollywood.

On film Mike appeared in a small role in the cult gangster movie Ma Barker et son gang (1960), which featured another former Mouseketeer, Don Grady, who later played Robbie Douglas on the series "My Three Sons". In addition, he and one-time Mouseketeer Lynn Fields were Sweet Apple teen dancers in the musical film Bye Bye Birdie (1963) starring Ann-Margret and Bobby Rydell.

Graduated from Hollywood High School in 1963, where he once played a lead role in a production of "The Music Man". He escorted his dance partner, Karen Larsen, to her senior prom a year later.

In later adult years he performed in some Vegas shows but eventually dropped out of the business discouraged and, ultimately, out of sight, working various menial jobs until his early death.

In an amusing 1958 episode of "December Bride," Mike plays the precocious son of "stage mother" Mary Treen who has him audition (badly) for Mickey Rooney using the stage name of Dash Hardwick.

The younger of two boys, his parents were Glenn Smith and Marie Carrillo. His mother was a strong, driving force in his young career.