Mike was born in Wallace, Idaho but his family moved around as his father was a career Army man who reached the rank of Brigadier General. He spent a good deal of his youth in Arlington, Virginia, then the family went overseas to Tokyo, Japan while his father was stationed in Korea during the war there. Returning to the States he attended his junior year of high school in Carlyle, Pennsylvania, then finished up at Falls Church High School in Falls Church, Virginia. While at Falls Church he acted in several school plays.
After attending Washington and Lee University, where he studied Journalism and acted in several school plays, he entered the Army where he spent the next five years and reached the rank of Captain. After the Army he became a reporter and worked for the Richmond Times Dispatch in Richmond, Virginia.
He eventually found his way to New York to work as an actor full time. After several years on the New York stage he ventured to Hollywood and after only six months there he won the role of Captain Hank Stanley on the hit action series 'Emergency!'. He replaced actor John Smith who briefly took over the role of the fire captain of fictional fire station 51 from real life fire captain Dick Hammer.
After 'Emergency!' Mike turned to television writing (having written four episodes of Emergency!) and wrote for such shows as The Love Boat, The Love Boat: The Next Wave, Nash Bridges and The Magnificent Seven, among others. He also wrote quite a few made-for-TV movies such as Doomsday Rock, Three On A Date, The Covergirl and the Cop, Pals, Barnum and The Incident, for which he was nominated for, but lost, an Emmy. He created and was Executive Producer for the short-lived, Love Boat clone Aloha Paradise.
