Michael TolanFilmography

Born:: November 27, 1927 in Detroit, MI
Occupation:: Actor, Executive Producer, Producer
Biography:: Michigan-born actor Michael Tolan is a graduate of Wayne State University. Tolan made his Broadway bow in the original 1955 production of George Axelrod's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, then went on to appear in such long-runners as A Hatful of Rain and Romanoff and Juliet. Reportedly in films...Read More

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Murder, She Wrote: The Dying Game

Synopsis: The purchase of Manhattan's venerable Larkin's Department Store by a nasty corporate raider (Harley Venton) gets off to a bad start when the accountant who brokered the deal is murdered. Jessica (Angela Lansbury) enters the picture when she finds out that the store's former owner Floyd Larkin Read More

1994
Murder, She Wrote: The Sound of Murder

Synopsis: On this occasion, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is at a recording studio, taping another of her "Mysteries for the Blind" album. During a break, she is invited to watch the recording of a heavy-metal rock video. In the course of the action, record producer Freddie Major (Edd Byrnes) is shot to Read More

1993
Law & Order: Asylum

Synopsis: When a man is stabbed to death in front of a coffee shop, an unhinged "street person" named Lemonhead (Matthew Cowles) leads detectives Logan (Chris Noth) and Cerreta (Paul Sorvino) to the probable killer, a homeless man named Polesky (Stuart Rudin). Sure enough, the cops find the murder weapon in Read More

1991
Presumed Innocent

Actors: Harrison Ford, Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Winfield

Synopsis: Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) is a bland, oppressed man who burns with a quiet, corrosive intensity that can flare uncontrollably. A Philadelphia prosecutor, Sabich's fire seems to have one outlet: his job. He loves prosecuting people. Otherwise, his life is dead-ended. He has a loveless marriage Read More

7/27/90
When Will I Be Loved?

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, three women meet each other in a divorce attorney's waiting room and soon become fast friends as they try to help each other through the pain of their crumbling marriages. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1990
Murder, She Wrote: No Accounting for Murder

Synopsis: Jessica's trouble-prone nephew Grady (Michael Horton) has landed a job with an accounting firm specializing in tax shelters. Unfortunately, Grady's boss is currently the target of an IRS investigation--and, ultimately, a murder victim. With the cops convinced that Grady is not only the killer but Read More

1987
Solomon Northup's Odyssey

Synopsis: Half Slave, Half Free is the reissue title for African-American director Gordon Parks' TV movie Solomon Northup's Odyssey. Based on the autobiography Twelve Years a Slave, the film relates the story of Solomon Northup, a black freedman who, in 1841, was kidnapped in Washington D.C. and sold into Read More

1984
Talk to Me

Actors: Austin Pendleton, Michael Murphy, Barbara Eda-Young, Dan Shor, Louise Fletcher

Synopsis: While staying at the Hollins Communication Institute, a stuttering accountant fittingly falls for a squirrel huntress who has a similar speech impediment. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

1982
Four Friends

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Jim Metzler, Michael Huddleston, Reed Birney

Synopsis: Also known as Moritorium and Georgia's Friends, Four Friends follows the titular quartet from high school to young adulthood. The film is set during the tumultuous 1960s, an era when everyone's values were turned inside out, shaken around, and reassembled. The central character is Read More

1981
All That Jazz

Actors: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Cliff Gorman, Leland Palmer, John Lithgow

Synopsis: "It's showtime!" In this part film à clef, part musical phantasmagoria, director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of Read More

1979
Kojak: Kojak's Days, Part 2

Synopsis: In the conclusion of a two-part story, any hopes of Kojak (Telly Savalas) enjoying a day off are dashed when a dead body is found in the trunk of a white Rolls Royce. Now the overworked detective must tear Manhattan apart in search of a woman (Kitty Winn) who has killed her husband, abandoned her Read More

1977
Kojak: Kojak's Days, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story, Kojak (Telly Savalas) is all set to spend a romantic day off with his current lady love Laura Martinson (Maud Adams). Alas, the detective is persistently interrupted by the demands of his job. For starters, a stolen Rolls Royce is recovered with a corpse Read More

1977
Night Terror

Synopsis: In this made-for-television thriller, a beautiful young woman is driving home on the freeway late one night and inadvertently witnesses the murder of a police officer. Soon afterward, she finds herself pursued by the crazed killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1976
The F.B.I.: The Betrayal

Synopsis: Escaped convict Frankie Geller (Michael Tolan) wants to make up for the many years that he neglected his daughter Valerie (Suzanne Arnold). Geller hopes to win back the girl's affections by raising some quick money in the only way he knows how--by selling Mob information to the highest bidder. As Read More

1974
Five on the Black Hand Side

Crew: Producer

Actors: Tchaka Almoravids, Kwasi Badu, Bonnie Banfield, Carl Mikal Franklin, Sonny Jim, Rudy Joe Ringo, Imamu Sukuma, Clarice Taylor, Leonard Jackson

Synopsis: Five on the Black Hand Side was released at a time when most black-oriented films were bloody action fests. In contrast, this low-budget effort, coproduced by actors Brock Peters and Michael Tolan, eschews exploitation for humanity and domestic drama. Leonard Jackson plays a barber who is also the Read More

1973
The F.B.I.: The Edge of Desperation

Synopsis: This episode may remind some viewers of the much-later theatrical feature Fargo--minus the grim humor, of course. Hoping to escape from an unhappy marriage, wealthy executive Alan Graves (Michael Graves) fakes his own kidnapping. Graves plans to collect $200,000 in ransom money from his hated Read More

1972
The 300 Year Weekend

Actors: Carole Demas

Synopsis: An drug-rehab encounter group has a 24-hour marathon in this melodrama. As each patient begins discussing his or her life and the reasons each of them turned to drugs, the attending psychologist finds himself becoming increasingly involved until he too begins to share. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

1971
Mission: Impossible: Terror

Actors: Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, David Opatoshu, Christopher George

Synopsis: The fate of a Middle Eastern nation hangs in the balance as terrorist Ismet El Kabir (Michael Tolan) is scheduled to be pardoned from prison. The IMF must prevent Kabir's release, thereby forcing him into an escape attempt that will cost him his life. The plan involves the infiltration of Kabir's Read More

1970
The F.B.I.: Blood Tie

Synopsis: Neil Kriton (Michael Tolan), a respectable businessman, is none too pleased when his black-sheep younger brother Ricky (Scott Marlowe) shows up, begging for a job. Neil relents and finds employment for Ricky, despite the reservations of Neil's wife Denise (Julie Adams) and sister-in-law Lori Donna Read More

1969
The Lost Man

Actors: Joanna Shimkus, Sidney Poitier

Synopsis: Jason Higgs (Sidney Poitier) is an angry black man who plans to rob a factory payroll. With the help of his accomplices Dennis (Al Freeman Jr.) and his white girlfriend Cathy (Joanna Shimkus), a racially motivated demonstration diverts attention from the crooks while they rob the safe. Jason is Read More

1969
John and Mary

Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Mia Farrow, Michael Tolan, Sunny Griffin, Stanley Beck

Synopsis: John and Mary attracted a great deal of press coverage in 1969 for being the one of the first American films in which the male and female leads (Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow) start out the film by spending the night together, rather than holding off until the end. The morning after, the boy and Read More

1969
Journey into Darkness

Synopsis: This dark drama is a combination of two episodes from a popular British TV show that centers on the supernatural. In the first a ruthless magnate, bored with his life, plays a terrifying game in which he is the one who decrees who shall live or die. The second episode centers around quadruplets Read More

1968
The F.B.I.: Wind It Up and It Betrays You

Synopsis: In the opening episode of The F.B.I.'s fourth season, Inspector Lew Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and his assistant Tom Colby (William Reynolds) go undercover to trap master spy Lorenz Tabor (Louis Jourdan). Ingredients essential to the intrigue are a bus ticket, a cryptanalysis, and a dead man's Read More

1968
Mission: Impossible: Trial by Fury

Actors: Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Martin Landau, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus

Synopsis: Written by Sy Salkowitz, "Trial by Fury" takes place in a South American dictatorship. When resistance leader Manuel Delgardo (Ernest Sarracino) is thrown into prison, his associate Santos Cardoza (Michael Tolan) has himself arrested so that he can pass on valuable information to Delgardo's Read More

1968
Mission: Impossible: The Play

Actors: Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Martin Landau, Greg Morris, John Colicos

Synopsis: Milos Kuro (John Colicos), minister of culture in an Eastern Bloc nation, plans to use an anti-American play to sabotage the peacful negotations between pro-Western premier Leon Vados (Barry Atwater) and the United States. To that end, Kuro, hires a travelling theatrical troupe to do his dirty Read More

1968
Hour of the Gun

Actors: James Garner, Jason Robards, Jr., Robert Ryan, Albert Salmi, Charles Aidman

Synopsis: John Sturges directed this sequel to his Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is more of a melancholy character study than an action Western. The Edward Anhalt screenplay (based on Douglas D. Martin's Tombstone's Epitaph) traces Wyatt Earp's (James Garner) moral decline from a lawman with high Read More

1967
The Journey of the Fifth Horse

Synopsis: In 1966, a year before he rose to overnight fame in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman won an Obie Award for his performance in Journey of the Fifth Horse, a stage adaptation by Ronald Ribman of the story Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev. The play was videotaped for public television that Read More

1966
The Greatest Story Ever Told

Actors: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Robert Loggia, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, Charlton Heston

Synopsis: Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting Read More

1965
The Nurses: Season 03

Actors: Shirl Conway, Zina Bethune, Michael Tolan, Joseph Campanella

1964
The Outer Limits: Corpus Earthling

Synopsis: A pair of seemingly inert black crystalline rocks are actually intelligent extraterrestrial viruses planning the invasion and destruction of the Earth. Dr. Paul Cameron (Robert Culp) can hear their thoughts as they discuss their plans, a result of a metal plate in his head from a war injury that Read More

1963
The Outer Limits: Zanti Misfits

Synopsis: The inhabitants of the planet Zanti establish contact with Earth, and prevail upon its inhabitants to accept custody of their criminals, whom they are incapable of executing. The Zantis demand total seclusion for the prison ship, which the humans grant out of fear that they will use their superior Read More

1963
Julius Caesar

Actors: Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud, Louis Calhern, Greer Garson, Edmond O'Brien, Deborah Kerr

Synopsis: Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed this exquisite version of William Shakespeare's play. Louis Calhern is Julius Caesar, whose conquests have enabled him to rise to the status of Roman dictator. But his ascent to almost God-like status has given pause to influential members of the Roman Senate. Chief Read More

1953
Second Chance

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell, Jack Palance, Sandro Giglio

Synopsis: Even without its 3D/stereophonic sound gimmickry, Second Chance is a crackling good suspenser. Robert Mitchum plays Russ Lambert, a prizefighter who heads to South America to forget a recent tragedy in the ring. Here he meets Clare Shepard (Linda Darnell), who is likewise running away -- not from Read More

1953
Hiawatha

Actors: Vince Edwards, Yvette Dugay, Keith Larsen, Eugene Iglesias, Armando Silvestre

Synopsis: When Vincent Edwards attained TV stardom as "Ben Casey" in 1961, his detractors took great delight in citing Edwards' earlier starring appearance in Monogram's Hiawatha. A great deal of fun was had by all when it was revealed that Edwards had to have his chest shaved on a daily basis while playing Read More

1952