Michael Dunn was born Gary Neil Miller in Shattuck, Oklahoma on October 20, 1934. Of Scots-Irish and Native American ancestry, he was an exceptionally bright child. But early in his life, his parents became concerned about his fragile health. At age four he dislocated both hips and thereafter suffered pain just from the everyday act of walking. Doctors eventually determined that he was suffering from nonhereditary dwarfism caused by a chemical imbalance during gestation. Though he refused to view his dwarfism as a handicap, the malady caused him continuous health problems; the deformity and associated pain in his hands and arms forced him to abandon a budding career as a concert pianist and eventually shortened his life. Even though he grew to be only three feet, ten inches tall and weighed a mere seventy-eight pounds, he had extraordinary intelligence.
During his college years he changed his name to Michael Dunn to honor his Irish ancestry.
Education
Dunn graduated from high school in Shattuck in 1949 at age fourteen. He enrolled at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1949 but transferred in 1950 to the University of Miami, Florida, in hopes that a warmer climate would soothe his aching body. There Dunn edited the college's newspaper and theater magazine, was a cheerleader, acted in theater department productions, and sang in local nightclubs to help pay his tuition and other expenses. During his college years he changed his name to Michael Dunn to honor his Irish ancestry. He graduated in June 1953.
Career
Dunn had long since decided he would seek a career in show business. While seeking his big break in acting, he worked as a sports rewrite man for a newspaper, a hotel detective in Los Angeles, and eventually as a singer in nightclubs around the country. Despite his diminutive size, his booming, resonant voice soon gained him recognition for singing acts at clubs like Mister Kelly's in Chicago and the Hungry I in San Francisco.
He settled in New York in the early 1960s and thereafter obtained a series of roles as clowns, fools, and old men in off-Broadway productions. The most famous of these plays was How to Make a Man, in which he stole the show while acting as the insides of a robot. In 1963 he acted in two one-act plays offered under the title Two by Saroyan and received great critical acclaim. His costar, four-foot-tall, ninety-two-pound Phoebe Dorin and he became close friends and confidants, forming a loving relationship that lasted the remainder of Dunn's life.
Late in the same year director Edward Albee gave Dunn his long awaited break when he cast him as Cousin Lymon in Albee's Broadway adaptation of Carson McCuller's Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Both Dunn and the play enjoyed rave reviews. The play had a long and profitable run, and Dunn was subsequently nominated for a Tony Award for best supporting actor. In 1965 he and Ms. Dorin began a nightclub act at the Plaza Fountain. The two entertainers developed the show from their extemporaneous after-hours singing sessions at the Plaza. Actor Roddy McDowall saw one such ad-lib performance, took photographs of it (they were subsequently published in the June 1965 issue of Life magazine), and urged the two friends to make their casual performance into a professional show. The locally popular cabaret show lasted for over two years.
About this time Dunn began an active television career by playing the evil Dr. Miguelito Loveless of the 1960's hit Western "The Wild Wild West, " starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin; he made seven appearances in this role. During the decade Dunn appeared on numerous other TV shows including "Bonanza, " "Star Trek, " "Get Smart, " and "The Big Valley. " For his performances in the "The Wild Wild West" and "Bonanza" he was nominated three times for an Emmy for best guest appearance in a weekly drama.
In late 1965 he secured his first big movie role, playing the hunchback dwarf Karl Glocken in Ship of Fools; his performance was singled out for critical acclaim, and Dunn was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor. He appeared in a number of other movies, including You're a Big Boy Now (1967), Without Each Other (1967), Madigan (1968), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), Boom! (1968), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), and House of Freaks (1973). Despite his success in films and television, he remained active in the New York theater. He drew rave reviews in the late 1960's in such plays as Here Come the Clowns, Shinbone Alley, Jamaica, and Malcolm. One of his most famous performances was his 1969 role in The Inner Journey performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
He died in London during the filming of another movie, The Abdication, in which he appeared with Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann.
Achievements
Despite serious illness, Michael was able to build a successful film career. He inspired a number of actors that were smaller and shorter than most average people, including Zelda Rubinstein, Eric The Actor, Mark Povinelli, and Ricardo Gil.
Dunn had converted to Catholicism and was baptized on September 25, 1954, by Reverend J. M. O'Sullivan at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, Florida. He was living in Ann Arbor with his parents, working as a professional singer, at the time he entered St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit, on February 25, 1958. According to a Capuchin Provincial Archivist, Dunn entered with the intention of becoming a Capuchin non-ordained Brother. He was known by his given name, Gary since he never became a novice. A testimonial from John F. Bradley, Catholic Chaplain, University of Michigan, states: "He has always been interested in Catholic activities and was president of the Newman Club in another school".
In response to a question on the monastery application asking: "How long have you been thinking of entering religious life?" Dunn wrote, "More than three years. " Dunn was later quoted in the New York Post explaining that he had wanted to be of service, since he was unfit for the military: "Everyone my age was going to Korea and I had this feeling that singing wasn't exactly doing my part. " However, monastery records entered by the Master of Novices show that the physical demands of monastic life in a huge, 19th-century building with no elevator proved too strenuous. Dunn left of his own accord on May 8, 1958, in order to pursue a stage career in New York.
Personality
Despite almost constant pain from the degenerative childhood disease that eventually took his life, he never gave in to his suffering.
Whether acting on TV, in movies, or on stage; whether singing and dancing at a nightclub or relaxing after midnight at his favorite haunt, Downing's Irish Steakhouse on Eighth Avenue in New York, with his sweet heart Phoebe Dorin, he always met life with zest and bravado, enjoying all it had to offer. Even as his health went into serious decline, he continued to work.
Quotes from others about the person
New York Times drama critic Clive Barnes declared: "Michael Dunn as the dwarf is so good that the play may be worth seeing merely for him. Controlled, with his heart turned inward, his mind is a pattern of pain. Mr. Dunn's Antaeus deserves all the praise it can be given. "
Director Anthony Harvey spoke for those who knew and admired him when he said, "Michael was a very talented and noble man. It was an honor to have worked with him. " It was a sentiment that all the theatrical world echoed, especially his beloved "Pheeb. "
Interests
During his brief life Dunn taught himself to drive a car, ice skate, swim, fly a plane, and skydive.
Connections
Dunn was married on December 14, 1966, to Joy Talbot. Motion Picture Magazine described her as a model, in a photo caption in the March, 1967 issue. The union was unhappy and childless, ending in divorce after a few years.
