Born and raised in the Chicago area, Michael, broke into acting as a child, doing local commercials. He had a very small role in the movie “Ordinary People", and was even directed by Robert Redford. Michael told Jay Leno, that ever since that experience, he knew he wanted to be an actor.
While in high school, he studied acting at the Second City workshop (in addition to being on the Freshman swim team, and later the Student Council), and after graduation, he enrolled in USC’s prestigious school of drama. Not even a year after receiving his B.F.A. in 1984, he landed the role of Dr. Mike Horton on NBC’s daytime drama “Days of Our Lives” in 1985.
After five years of “Days", Michael left the show, and joined primetime to co-star in NBC’s 1991 remake of Dark Shadows, and then in 1992, CBS’ 2000 Malibu Road.
While still on “Days", Michael had taken some time out to star in a few movies: The Howling 4, and two made for TV movies, Take My Daughters Please, and The Great LA Earthquake.
After the short-lived run of 2TMR, Michael was next seen in some more movies: a small cameo appearance in Angel 4 Undercover (1994), and the TV adaptation of “Remember Me", based on the Mary Higgins Clark mystery novel (1995, CBS, co-starring Kelly McGillis).
In 1995, Michael was once again on the ‘big screen’, and this time it was a full role - both in quantity and quality: In Jeffrey (1995), Michael played an HIV positive, gay man, who has learned the life lesson, that we cannot wait for life to work out for us, we must go after it. While this movie deals seriously and responsibly with the subject of AIDS, there was a lot of humor as well. Michael co-starred with Steven Weber (Wings) and Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation).