Michael Beck

Not to be confused with Mikkel Beck

John Michael Beck Taylor (born February 4, 1949), commonly known as Michael Beck, is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Swan in the 1979 film, The Warriors.

Biography

Beck was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the third of nine children. He attended Memphis University School and then Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, on a football scholarship. While in college he was initiated into Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. After graduating with a degree in Economics, he was one of 30 (out of 2,500) applicants chosen for London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Michael's stage credits, beginning with college, include: Camelot (he was King Arthur); and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. Besides acting, his hobbies include reading, music and cooking.

Beck is known predominantly for his roles as "Swan" in the action film The Warriors (1979), "Sonny Malone" in Xanadu (1980), and as "Lieutenant-Commander Dallas" in Megaforce (1982). (Both the Xanadu and Megaforce roles garnered him Razzie nominations for Worst Actor and Worst Supporting Actor respectively.) Beck also appeared in other movies such as Warlords of the 21st Century, The Last Ninja, The Golden Seal (as an evil poacher), and Wes Craven's Chiller (as a cryogenically-frozen sociopath). He read for, but did not get, the role of Sir Lancelot in John Boorman's movie Excalibur. Michael starred in a short-lived television series, Houston Knights (1987), in the role of "Sgt. Levon Lundy." More recently, Beck starred in television shows JAG, Robin's Hoods, Walker Texas Ranger (in the episode A Difficult Peace), and as the Mars-born terrorist-turned-cyborg assassin "Abel Horn" in the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 1994 episode "A Spider in the Web".

Michael has narrated numerous audiobooks of John Grisham's novels. He has also narrated Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz; A Darkness More Than Light by Michael Connelly; State of the Union by David Callahan; and the unabridged version of Bill Clinton's My Life. He also lent his voice to the popular video game adaptation of The Warriors (2005).

Beck lives in California with his songwriter-wife Cari (they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in September 2005), and with their two children: daughter Ashley and son Jesse. According to Michael, neither of his kids acts or plays football.

It has been announced that he will play Swan again in the remake of The Warriors, to be released in 2010.

Quotes

• "The Warriors opened a lot of doors in film for me, which Xanadu then closed."
• "One rule of thumb which my parents handed down to me, and which I've handed down to my kids, is this: 'You won't get respect just because of a name or a title, but your name and title just might get respect because of you.' It's never failed us yet."

External links

• Michael Beck at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Beck at Allmovie