"Mike’s a very sweet guy but extremely stubborn….He’s too impulsive. Mike will do a thing one day that he’ll regret eight days later. When it comes to a sense of humor, Mike has a terrific one.”

September 1960
Lorne feels that they’ve had some of their best scenes together. “Perhaps because he lost his own father when he was quiet young, he always brings to these scenes a special quality that is at the same time tender and virile,” he says. "I think they give a hint of a very considerable and largely still untapped artistic potential.”

“We’re father and son in the series, but off the set I forget that I’m almost twice his age. We’re friends. He’s very bright, very good company, highly responsible, very mature.”

“Mike’s a very good father, husband and family man,” says Lorne Greene. “He has a great relationship with his step-son Mark. It’s hard to believe that an 11-year-old kid would call someone as young as Mike ‘dad’, but he does. And Mike has earned it, along with the boy’s respect and affection. He’s firm with him, but gives him as much of himself as any real father can give his boy; takes him fishing, hunting, camping – they’re real pals. He’s also wonderful with the new baby. I’ve seen him bathe him, diaper him, feed him and play with him. He really enjoys his family.”

1961
“I have fun competing with him because you always get a game out of him. I remember when we were on location at Big Bear, California. He lured me into a pinball game and clobbered me 5,000 to 1,000. Then we moved to a different kind of pinball game. This time I clobbered him. When I suggested we move to something else he refused. He wanted to continue on the one he'd lost at. He likes to win, but this is a good trait - when he loses he works hard to improve.”

February 1965
“One thing I like very much about Mike is that he isn’t afraid to show himself soft. I wish those young cynics who imagine they’re so clever could meet “Little Joe” in person. Mike is completely unaffected. He’s sympathetic and protective the moment his heart is touched, and he never hesitates to express his love for his family. Anyone who fools around with him is silly. He doesn’t let anyone step on him.”

1972

"I’ve seen him grow from a lad to a man. I have seen the man mature into an artist. No finer director exists in this business.”

Linwood Boomer (Adam Kendall – LHOTP)

July 1979
"Michael is terrific. The first day on location I walked into his dressing room expecting to find a lavish suite and it was just a little room with bugs. He smiled and said, ‘You like the way the stars live, kid?’ He does little things to relax a person. Once he put a live frog in his mouth and let it jump out at a woman.”

Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright – Bonanza)

September 1960
"Mike’s a real brain. After you talk to him for a few minutes you forget that he’s only 23 years old. He’s got the mind and the maturity of a man twice his age. And a very nice guy he is, too.”

“That little guy is half my size and eats twice as much as I do,” he moans. “It ain’t fair.” Dan reports that one of Mike’s average luncheons consists of all the bread and butter on the table, a generous portion of meat, potatoes and vegetable, pie a la mode, and always a chocolate soda. “Then when he’s finished he starts all over again, ordering a complete second luncheon identical to the first. I don’t know where he puts it. I gain weight just looking at food.”

Dan Blocker confirms that they’ve all had their share of fan mail. “We’re all equal co-stars,” he says. “Of course, when it comes to mail from the ladies, maybe Mike is just a little more equal than the rest of us.”

July 1967
“Mike knows he can’t sing,” says Blocker, who served as best man at Landon’s second marriage five years ago. “He’s flat. He’s off-key. Michael’s not kidding himself. But if those jerks’ll pay for it, he’ll sing.”

Jerry Stagg (Producer - The Mystery Of Casper Hauser)

January 1962
His big break came in an episode of Telephone Time, the old anthology series, called “The Mystery of Casper Hauser,” an offbeat story about a teen-age boy who had apparently been imprisoned in solitary darkness all his life. Producer Jerry Stagg says: “I needed rare masculine beauty, I needed virility. I got both in Landon.”

David Canary (Candy Canaday – Bonanza)

December 1967
To David, the most uneasy time he has had on the series was that first seven-o’clock call to the set. “I was nervous,” he admits. “I never had met the others before and could only hope they would like me. They made me welcome, though, as soon as I stepped inside the soundstage. These guys have been great to me – especially Mike. One day Mike asked me if the sponsor had given me a car to use. I shook my head negatively. ‘All the regulars have “loan” cars to use for the year,’ he informed me. ‘You’re a regular and you should have one’ Arrangements were made, thanks to Mike to get me one. Another time, I really was in pain. This time it wasn’t my nose, but an old football injury to my neck. It became stiff and I could have screamed every time I moved my head. Mike, I guess, couldn’t help but notice that I was hurting. He asked me what was bothering me and I told him. He left the set and came back with a hot-water bottle!”

David Dortort (Creator & Executive Producer – Bonanza)

November 1959
"The Kid was good. He’d worked dozens of shows, including Restless Gun, but I’d made the mistake of killing him off in that pilot. For some reason no one had ever signed him for a regular series. I fixed that.”

November 1969
“The boy has grown into a man and it’s a small shock to the people in the crew, who have known Mike for 10 years now. The truth is that Mike is a very good director who knows how to handle actors with a firm rein. He’s also a very good writer and a very good actor. Mike used to be the kid who lost his temper. Now, when guest stars get temperamental, Mike’s the man who calms them down.”

April 1975
“It got bad because Landon developed very quickly as a good director. Then, as an actor, he began to criticize what he thought were errors being made by other Bonanza directors. They’d come to me and say, ‘We spend most of our time arguing.’ It was the same with Mike Landon, the writer. He’d challenge nearly every line, every scene, every setup in other writers’ scripts. Everything would halt for endless story conferences on the set, and I finally had to use Dan Blocker as an intermediary to say, ‘Let’s get on with the damned thing.’ It got increasingly bitter toward the end.”

1991
(Talking about choosing Michael for the part of Joe in Bonanza) "I was considering a lot of young people for the part of Little Joe. So I brought a lot of photo's home, including Michael's. My wife, Rose, looked at his picture and said, 'He's got a face blessed from heaven; how can you consider anyone else?' And was she ever right. Just before we started to shoot the 'Bonanza' pilot, my wife and I took him and his wife, Dodie out to dinner. He studied the menu and he said, 'I can't decide whether to have the lobster dinner or the steak dinner.' I was joking and I said, 'Why don't you have both?' And he exclaimed, 'CAN I?!' I said, 'If you can eat it.' And he ate both complete dinners - soup, salad, appetizer, dessert, two of everything. I guess he was a hungry kid."

Kent McCray (Production Manager – Bonanza / Producer - LHOTP/HTH)

November 1969
“Ten years have changed Mike. He’s matured. He’s level-headed. He gives more of himself. The kid’s OK.”

December 21 1985
(Talking about when Victor left LHOTP to do his own show Carter Country). For the first time, relations between French and Landon chilled. “Michael felt he’d lost a brother, a member of his very tight group on the show. Michael always looked to Victor to play important scenes. He turned to Victor to hash out problems in a script or on the set. And then Victor was gone, and it hurt.”

January 1990
“He’s mellowed, the small things don’t get taken quiet as dramatically.”

March 2 1985
“He hates readings, I think he feels sorry for some of these people. It reminds him of his old days.”

April 1975
“I don’t think the audience is aware, nor should they be, of the techniques an actor uses to evoke certain responses. I can tell you Michael is a master of acting technique. That’s why he’s such an excellent writer and director, as well as an actor. He just has this feeling inside, based on the solid knowledge of what he’s doing. Some actors never achieve this.”

June 1975
“For the interview, I had been told to wear no makeup and a dress. I was glad they were going to try something in that period of American history that wouldn’t be glamorous.” The interview went well, and she was asked to come back the next day to read some scenes. “Mike Landon was sitting on the floor so he could catch every nuance of what I was doing. When it was over, he sort of leaped off the floor and said, ‘Super!’”

June 1991
“I don’t know any friend who had a harder childhood than Michael, but he was able to take that experience and transmute it into a product that touched millions of people.”

July 1991
“Michael was not an uncomplicated person. He had rough edges,” stresses Little House co-star Karen Grassle. “This is not just Mr. Nice Guy. People do an injustice if their hero worship takes them to a point where they say: ‘Well, it was easy for him.’ It was very hard…and I’m sure it cost him.”

July 1991
"I prayed for a miracle for Michael, and I am devastated by the news of his death. I knew what his prognosis was. But, the thing is, he believed in miracles. In some ways, that was his message, his legacy."

January 9 1982
“He keeps people at arm’s length. Maybe it’s insecurity. I’ve rarely seen him lose his temper, but once in a while when it comes out, it’s frightening. In fact, I have spent a lot of time hating Mike, and then a lot of time praying for him.”

November 1969
"Mike used to be a problem. A little temperament, you know. Usually people in a long-running series tend to become more difficult as the challenge leaves. But Mike discovered the challenge of writing and he matured. Now he’s the guy who makes everybody else’s job easier.”

Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls - LHOTP)

February 1977
“Michael’s just one in a million,” Melissa enthuses about the man who plays daddy to her and all the other children who portray the frontier Ingalls family. “I mean,” she explains, “a lot of actors play a part and you know they aren’t anywhere near what the character they are portraying is like. But Mike, off camera, is really so much like Charles Ingalls. So good and devoted to his family. So loving and hard working.” Occasionally, when another child –not a regular – is needed for a part, Mike will bring in one of his own seven children to work. Even then, though, he never plays favorites between his real children and his make-believe brood. Melissa says he’s “just like he is with us. Very patient. Very understanding. Most of all, very fair.” When he isn’t involved in shooting a scene, Michael can often be found with the children, playing tag, telling jokes, just having a good time. “He’s hilarious,” Melissa exclaims. “He’s always telling these funny jokes and making up words and calling us by nicknames and just being funny. I guess you might say he’s almost perfect. The main thing is that as big a star as Michael is, he isn’t carried away with his own importance. He’s just a very down-to-earth person. A nice guy. I’m really so privileged to work on this set. Everyone is so nice to me.” She fondly remembers the day she was called back for a second interview for the part. “I read for Michael. He had a way of just putting me at ease from the very beginning. He has a way with little girls. He’s great! Our show has many scenes that are very dramatic…or emotional. Before we do such scenes, all Michael has to say is a word or two about the mood and we instantly know what he’s talking about. It’s his whole manner – the tone of his voice. You know what’s expected of you.”

September 1978
When Missy fretted that her impending blindness on the show was really a way to write her out of the script, “I told her to trust me,” Landon says. The result was that last March’s blindness segment was the highest-rated Little House of the year and put Missy up for an Emmy Sept. 17. “Michael called to congratulate me,” she remembers. “By the end of the conversation we were both in tears. Michael cares so much about everybody he makes you care about yourself.”

May 1991
“He was very good to us. I learned how to deal with other actors. We welcomed people to our set instead of making them feel they were outsiders looking in.”

July 1991
"As a person, I think I turned out well, and he was a part of that. When I heard about the cancer, I suddenly realized I always took him for granted. It was how you would feel about a parent."

September 1980
“He started asking questions about lenses. Very bright questions…So I made the ‘mistake’ of giving him, kind of as a gag, a copy of the American Society of Cinematographers handbook – that’s our bible. Well, I come in one day and there he is saying, ‘Teddy, let’s put on a 50; let’s do this, let’s do that.’ ‘You’ve read the book! Page 47,right?’ ‘Right!’ That kind of thing. Actually, he caught on so fast! Many writers can ‘see’ things that maybe you can’t photograph. Well, after getting to know the camera and lenses, Mike can write things that you can actually do. The man knows so much now, knows what everybody does, he could take over the whole picture. I’m very lucky he’s made me a part of the thing. Working with him is like playing with a good golfer: The way he does it, you want to do your best. Has he changed much since those ‘Bonanza’ days? Just become more mature, more acquainted with more facets of the business, such as editing. The love that was there from the beginning still exists. If he were a girl, I’d marry him.”

April 1986

"He's pretty much got it worked out in his head what he wants. He's a very bright man, very creative. But I will still say to Michael, 'Do you want this scene dramatic, lights down? or do you want just a night interior?’ We work together and if all directors were like that, all films would be Van Goghs."

NBC publicist Bill Kiley – also with Landon since “Bonanza” –affectionately says that “he can run a studio, but he can’t run himself.” So there is always someone to put gas in his car because he doesn’t “remember” to do it. “He’d run out on the way home and wouldn’t even have a dime in his pocket to make a phone call.” “ He always wears boots,” Kiley says, “because he wouldn’t remember to tie his shoes.”

May 1991
“Nobody works for Mike; they work with him. The only time I ever saw him get mad was at anybody who tried to pull power – a director who yelled at a standby. It was because of what happened to his father.” Eli had been a publicity man in New York City whose clients all moved west to be in movies. “He decided to go west too, knowing they’d hire him back. Mike tells of the day his father stood outside Paramount Studios and cried because they (the studio bosses) wouldn’t even let him in the door. Mike could be standing near the set ready to do a very heavy scene, and he would be telling you the raunchiest, funniest jokes in history. Then he’d step in front of the camera, and tears would start. I asked him one day, ‘How the hell can you do that?’ He said, ‘I just remember what they did to my dad out here.’ ” Late in life, Landon’s father became a manager of a Hollywood theater. He used to eat soup at the same restaurant every day. “He’d take a sip of the soup, and he’d say, ‘That’s very good!’ and finish it off. One day he said, ‘That’s very good!’ and dropped dead face-first into his soup. Mike always said, ‘I hope I go that way'.”

July 1991
As the executive producer and director of Little House, Landon was exacting. As a star of the series, according to Kiley, he didn’t mind being upstaged for the good of the show. “Victor French damn near stole the pilot. Many people would make sure someone like that never threatened their status again. But Michael said: ‘Why not be a regular?’ They became close friends.” Three years later, French defected to star in ABC’s Carter Country. “When that show bombed, someone asked Victor if he wanted to come back. He said: ‘Not After what I did.’ But when Michael found out Victor wanted back, he was back. Michael’s brand of loyalty was unlimited.”

July 1991

“After the last episode of Little House on the Prairie,” recalls Kiley, “Michael broke down crying. (It) was like losing a family.”

April 1975
“When Michael senses the girls are getting a bit tired, or losing concentration, he’ll sneak in a funny line of dialogue that doesn’t belong. Everyone laughs, and the mood is changed and the girls are back on the beam. He tells jokes, plays with the girls, attends to their special needs. It’s as though Michael, grown man that he is, is still part child. It’s that side of him which comes out when working with the girls. He knows exactly when to be firm and when to be soft and pliable.”

April 1975
“On set, as hard as we work, Michael helps us all the time by being funny. He tells the craziest jokes! Sometimes, he even plays catch with me between scenes. And he’s always doing funny things to make us laugh. He’s not only a wonderful actor and writer, but also a terrific director. When he’s directing the show, he goes out of his way to explain what’s happening so we kids can understand. And you know what? Sometimes, when it’s a sad scene, he makes me cry just listening to his description! He can explain things clearer than anyone I know.”

1983
“Michael is my surrogate father,” the actress smiles. “He’s been a wonderful guiding force for me, and I love him!”

1991
"There is a big hole in my heart...He was like a father to me. He was my friend. I will miss him so much. But I will carry his legacy on in my life, in my work and in my heart forever."

January 1982
“I know he is driven,” says his friend and fellow actor Merlin Olsen. “We are all driven. We all have our devils. I don’t know what Mike’s are, but I know they are powerful.”

May 1991
“I’ve seen him do things that anyone else would have thought was impossible, like sitting down in the rain rewriting a script on the spot so we could keep shooting.” Another time, Olson recalls, Landon was having trouble getting a crow to land on Olson’s head. “Finally he put a piece of rotten meat on my head, and sure enough the crow took the meat and flew off, leaving a little calling card. Michael thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. He has a great laugh. And a respect for family and for decency that transcends the dollar.”

January 1982
“He hired me for one reason: to point out to the industry that he was writing and directing Bonanza,” says Bernstein. “I did just that, and he got a lot of attention. Rave reviews. Even then he knew what he wanted and where he would be now. Mike is strong-willed and strong-principled and I respect him. He wants to do things his own way. His whole thing is about control. He has always been more interested in control over everything than in any kind of star glamour. In fact, the only problem he has ever had in his career is when someone else is in control, or when someone else wants control.”

May 1991
During his Bonanza days, Landon made an appearance at an elite club in the South. “The woman sitting next to him told him how proud she was that the club was restricted. He asked her what that meant. She said,' We don’t allow Jews.’ So he said, ‘I’ll have to leave,’ and he got up and left.”

Victor French (Isaiah Edwards - LHOTP / Mark Gordon – HTH)

December 21 1985
“I was astonished Michael remembered me at all,” French says. “And then he had to fight for me, too. NBC wanted a ‘name’ as Isaiah. Fortunately, Michael stuck to his guns and it turned my career around. And my life. I had been insecure, frustrated and angry playing one rotten guy after another all those years.”

(Talking about when Victor left LHOTP to do his own show Carter Country) “I understand why Michael was upset, it was like I had deserted him. But after I heard there was a problem, I went to talk to him directly and explain everything. It was all settled and forgotten in five minutes.”

HTH Years
“He loves children and it is a standing rule on the set that rehearsal comes to a halt when one who is terminally ill comes to visit."  Flynn said Landon forbids him from calling the news media and saying, “Hey, look what we did.” “He’s much too nice a man to ever let us publicize his generosity."

Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson – LHOTP)

May 1991
“Michael has a truly deranged sense of humor. When people visited the set, especially women who had a crush on him, he’d conceal a small lizard or frog in his cheek. He’d close his mouth and come up with a wining smile. He’d say, ‘Hi,’ and the lizard or frog would leap out. He did this dozens of times. They finally had to stop him because the children were starting to emulate him.”

Hal Burton (Stunt Double - Bonanza/LHOTP)

May 1991
“For a little guy, boy, can he eat. He once downed three giant-size prime ribs, and it wasn’t unusual for us to have a half dozen eggs and three steaks in a meal. But he keeps in great shape.”

July 1991
“On most shows, at Christmas they give you a bottle of booze. Michael gave $1000 gifts. On Father Murphy, he gave everybody gold coins, TV sets and stereos.”

Barbara Gilbert (mother of Melissa and Jonathan Gilbert)

May 1991
“He doesn’t believe in ‘stars.’ When a truck got stuck in the mud, he’d be in there with a shovel digging it out with the rest of the guys. He didn’t have a star dressing room; he had the same kind as everyone else. When there were a lot of people on the show, he would share his dressing room with an extra or a bit player. He taught Melissa the importance of family and home – that when you go home, you put (your acting) away, and she’s very much that way. He gave my children 10 wonderful years and lessons for the rest of their lives."

Stan Ivar (John Carter – LHOTP)

May 1991
“He’s one of the few men I know who overcomes barriers without a bulldozer attitude. He does it with intellect, instinct and compassion.” During one of his first scenes on the show, a nervous Ivar kept flubbing his lines. “Finally, Michael took me aside and said, ‘Stan, remember I hired you. You don’t have to be anybody else but you.’ That took a lot of the pressure off.”

Brandon Tartikoff (Head of NBC)

May 1991
After Little House went off the air, Landon came to Tartikoff with a new series idea. “He said, ‘I’m sure a lot of people come into your office and tell you they know how to make people laugh. I’m the kind of producer who knows how to make them feel. I want to play a character who is a positive force, who has the power to come into people’s lives and they become the better for it. I want to play an angel of God.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding! The press is going to assassinate you! They’ll call you Jesus of Malibu!” The outlandish idea became Highway To Heaven. “There’s not a whole lot of difference, in my mind, between the Jonathan Smith character Michael played on Highway and the relationship Michael has had with a lot of people. He has come into ordinary people’s lives and had a very special effect on them.”

Ned Beatty (Guest - HTH)

July 1991
“Once I was on a sort of blacklist because a story was put out that I was anti-Semitic. Michael (who was Jewish) didn’t hesitate to hire me for two episodes of Highway to Heaven. He was willing to break all of the producer taboos.”

Fred Silverman (Former NBC President)

July 1991
“He proved in a very cynical period in the United States that a major percentage of the audience still eagerly watches family-oriented shows. When it comes to dramatic family programming. Michael was the master.”

Matthew Laborteaux (Albert Ingalls – LHOTP)

January 1984
“He makes it easy to be an actor. I’m so glad I had the chance to work with him.”

Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright – Bonanza)

September 1965
"Part of the misunderstanding with Mike was my fault. Like when he appeared on Johnny Carson’s show, he told Carson, 'On Bonanza I met two nice guys.' I was the guy left out. So I asked him about it. His attitude seemed to be that when I knocked the show (like my own statement on the Carson show that Bonanza didn’t fulfill my needs), I was knocking him personally. All this came about because I myself was indiscreet. Not in knocking Bonanza, but a couple of years before in talking directly and honestly to Landon. When he asked why I wanted to leave the show, I told him. I pointed out that there was not an equality of competence among the actors, that he himself was untrained, that he was perpetuating bad acting habits. I meant all this constructively. I was trying to convey that he was not getting the fullest potential from his talent. I was attempting to say that he wasn’t developing himself. Somehow he took it as a personal attack. He never forgot. I’m sorry."

Cindy Landon

1992
"I learned a lot from Michael. Today, I believe that my strength comes from him. Last year - weeks before he died - he wrote his parting advice to me in a Mother's Day wish book. It's very special to me, and I read it often. In it he said, "Be strong. Be solid. Live life, love it, and be happy." Michael once told me, "Don't grieve too long." I'm trying, but losing someone like Michael, this is something that stays with you forever."


1992
"As a husband, he was the best - strong, caring, supportive, witty and fun to be around. Michael was also a homebody. Every day before he left the studio he'd call and ask what we needed from the market. He'd show up with a bag of goodies in his arms. Michael loved to cook, and on many nights he'd take over the kitchen. His specialties were Italian dishes like spaghetti with sausage and chicken cacciatore. He was as good a father as he was a husband. I used to love to watch him with the children, especially on vacations. In Hawaii, he taught them to skip stones across the water and got as excited as the children did when they discovered a beautiful shell or a tiny hermit crab. He would spend hours, literally hours playing in the ocean with Sean and Jennifer. Everything was just so perfect. Michael loved our life, his work. He'd always been incredibly healthy. We were looking forward to growing old together."

Alex Sharp (Stuntman/Writer - Bonanza)

1991
"When you think about it, he conquered the whole world. And I know there were people at NBC that hated his guts, because they wanted to see him fail. And he didn't fail. And he was arrogant towards a lot of those people, who for one reason or the other rubbed him the wrong way, and he rubbed them the wrong way. Early on they tried to do certain things and he stubbornly refused to do it... And he was right. Nobody likes to be wrong, so there were a lot of people that were hoping he would fail. But he didn't. He kept battin' a thousand."


1991
"When you did a fight with Mike, you also got some running gags right in the middle of it. If you're rolling around on the floor, he always had some kind of a wisecrack. He'd go to the table with you, you didn't have to worry about treating him rough. BOOM - he'd go! He just loved that contact. He said, 'You know, I get so damn tired of doing the lines; I want to DO something!' And then afterwards, his eyes would flash, God, he was all charged up and macho. I thought, wait a minute, he's gonna punch me out here in a minute!"

Cecil Smith (TV critic)

1975

"He was a kind of moody loner, shy, staying apart from the others on the show at first - a long-haired petulant kid. After all, he was shoved into Bonanza mainly for his youthful appeal and little else. Yet behind those smokey green eyes was real awareness. Mike didn't talk much, but he was always listening and watching the work of the technicians. After ten years he was a truly different fellow. He had matured. Of all the toilers in the TV vineyards, none has shown more artistic growth over the past decade than Michael Landon."

Brianne Murphy (Director Of Photography – LHOTP/HTH)

April 1986

"The company has heart. It sounds corny, but it's got heart. Mike Landon cares. Beyond being a caring person, what I see is one of the most talented - that's a hackneyed word. He's a genius. When he is getting ready to do a scene, it's like he encloses himself in a glass bubble. He visualizes the entire scene. He doesn't shoot a master. He shoots what he's going to use and then he goes to the angle he's going to cut to. He knows the music cues and where they are going to go. In spite of all this, if something magical happens that he wasn't expecting, he'll take it and use it."

Patricia Neal (Guest actress in LHOTP episode “Remember Me.”)

“I received a script for an episode of ‘Little House On The Prairie’ from Michael Landon, the shows producer and star. I loved it and wanted to do it very much. Unfortunately, the shooting schedule would cut across our summer plans for Norway and I just could not afford to leave the family now. I asked Irving Lazar, then my agent, to try to negotiate something, but he was sure I had lost it. I would not be discouraged. I called Michael Landon directly and pleaded my case. Dear Michael told me that I had the part, and that they could wait. Little House On The Prairie’ turned out to be a lovely experience. I had been a bit concerned that Michael Landon was not only the star and producer but had written the script and was the director as well. I did not know how one man could do all of that and do it well. But he fooled me good. Michael is one of the finest directors I have ever worked with, he understands actors and he understands people.”