Actor Michael Tolan R.I.P.

Actor Michael Tolan passed on January 31, 2011 at the age of 85.The cause was heart disease and heart failure.

Michael Tolan was born Seymour Tuchow on November 27, 1925 in Detroit. He graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit. Following graduation he was with a repertory company in Detroit. He studied under Stella Adler in New York. He also won a fellowship to study acting at  Stanford University. It was while he was at Stanford that he was cast as gangster James Malloy in the movie The Enforcer (1951).

Throughout the Fifties Mr. Tolan appeared in such films as Insie the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951), Fort Worth (1951), The Savage (1951), Hiawatha (1951), and Julius Caesar (1953). His career would primarily be on television and on stage. In the Fifties he appeared on such shows as Inner Sanctum, The Web, Kraft Theatre, Studio One, Decoy, Diagnosis: Unknown, and Omnibus.

In the Sixties Michael Tolan played Dr. Tazinski on The Nurses and Jordan Boyle on The Senator (one of the series that aired under the umbrella title The Bold Ones). He appeared on the shows Armstrong Circle Theatre, Naked City, The United States Steel Hour, Route 66, The Outer Limits, Felony Squad, Tarzan, The Invaders, The Rat Patrol,  Mannix, Mission: Impossible, and Dan August.He appeared in the movies Roseanna (1967), Hour of the Gun (1967), Journey into the Darkness (1968), The Lost Man (1969), and John and Mary (1969).

In the Seventies Mr. Tolan appeared in such shows as  Nichols, Circle of Fear, Owen Marshall: Counsellor at Law, The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, Hallmark Hall of Fame, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, McMillan and Wife, and Kojak. He appeared in the films The 300 Year Weekend (1971) and All That Jazz (1980). From the Eighties into the Naughts Mr. Tolan appeared in such shows as Nurse, Law and Order, and Murder She Wrote. He appeared in the films Talk to Me (1984), Presumed Innocent (1990), and Perfect Stranger (2007).

Michael Tolan also had a stage career. He made his Broadway debut in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter in 1955. He would later appear in such plays as The Genius and the Goddess (1957) and Unlikely Heroes (1971). He also helped found the American Place Theatre, a successful Off Broadway playhouse.