Michael
Forest was born Gerald Micahel Charlebois on April 17, 1929 in Harvey, North
Dakota. He moved with his family at a very early age to Seattle,
Washington. After high school he attended and graduated with a B.A. in English
and drama from San Jose State University. At six-foot-three and weighing in at
a lean, mean 215, Michael Forest was a rugged-looking addition to the Roger
Corman and Gene Corman's list of leading men during their 1950s heyday. Between
Corman films, he was a stage actor who worked in Shakespearean plays and other
legitimate productions. Forest came to Hollywood in 1955 and started acting on
TV and on stage at the Players Ring. In 1957, he began to study with veteran
actor/acting teacher Jeff Corey, in whose classes Forest first encountered
Roger Corman. Forest has also worked extensively on TV and European films.
Forest was also an amateur boxer.While living in Europe Michael appeared in five Euro-wesrterns from “The Wrath of God” in 1968 to “Now They Call Him Sacramento” in 1972 which highlighted the destruction of the Balcazar studios Esplugues City western set. He’s probably best remembered for his roles in “100 Rifles” with Raquel Welch, Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds and “The Last Rebel” with Joe Namath, Woody Strode and Jack Elam.
Today he’s known as a provider of voices for many animated titles. At the age of 71, he played the voice of Prince Olympius in “Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue”.
Mike's also done fine work in TV westerns. I've recently caught him in episodes of Gunsmoke and Virginian, and a couple of years ago he was in the very dark western Scarlet Worm. Hope we meet up at the next Autry lunch!
ReplyDeleteWhen we did the 1st L.A. Spaghetti Western Festival, I was going to introduce Forest as not having done anywhere near as many SW films as the others but probably the most seen of the bunch as he can be seen on Encore Westerns almost daily in many of the TV westerns they show.
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