1. Michael Ansara was first married to Jean Byron, who played Patty Duke's mother on The Patty Duke Show.
35 Facts About Michael Ansara
1. 2.
Michael Ansara received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the television industry, located at 6666 Hollywood Boulevard.
3.
Michael George Ansara was born in a small village in the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old.
4.
Michael Ansara's family lived in Lowell, Massachusetts, before moving to California when he was ten.
5.
Michael Ansara originally wanted to be a physician, but developed a passion for becoming a performer after he began taking acting classes at Pasadena Playhouse to overcome his shyness.
6.
Michael Ansara was educated at Los Angeles City College, from which Ansara earned Associate of Arts degree.
7.
Michael Ansara served as a medic in the army during World War II.
8.
Michael Ansara appeared in several biblical epics includingThe Robe as Judas Iscariot, The Ten Commandments as a taskmaster, and The Greatest Story Ever Told as Herod's commander.
9.
Michael Ansara appeared in other films of biblical tales including Queen Esther and Slaves of Babylon, the biblical story of Daniel.
10.
However, Montalban did not want to commit to a series, and after a screen test with 20th Century-Fox, Michael Ansara was cast in the role.
11.
Michael Ansara starred in the ABC-TV series, Law of the Plainsman, with Gina Gillespie and Robert Harland.
12.
Michael Ansara performed as an Apache Indian named Sam Buckhart, who had been appointed as a US Marshal.
13.
Michael Ansara guest starred on several other television Westerns, including The Rebel, Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Virginian, Branded, Daniel Boone, and Gunsmoke.
14.
Michael Ansara starred in several more Western films, including The Comancheros, Texas Across the River, and Guns of the Magnificent Seven.
15.
In 1978, Ansara starred as Lame Beaver in the acclaimed miniseries Centennial, based on the novel by James A Michener.
16.
Not limited to a single genre, Michael Ansara appeared in several science fiction and fantasy genre films and television series.
17.
Michael Ansara appeared with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.
18.
Michael Ansara appeared in all of the Irwin Allen television series.
19.
Michael Ansara is one of seven actors to play the same character on three Star Trek television series.
20.
In 1994, Michael Ansara portrayed the Technomage "Elric" in the Babylon 5 episode "The Geometry of Shadows".
21.
In 1961, Michael Ansara co-starred with Eden in the film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
22.
In 1966, Michael Ansara guest-starred on Eden's sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie, as the Blue Djinn.
23.
Michael Ansara would appear with Eden two more times in the series, as King Kamehameha in the 1968 episode "The Battle of Waikiki", and as Major Biff Jellico in the episode "My Sister, the Home Wrecker".
24.
Michael Ansara directed the series penultimate episode, "One Jeannie Beats Four of a Kind".
25.
Michael Ansara starred in Infidel Caesar with the silent film actor Ramon Novarro at the Music Box Theater on Broadway.
26.
Michael Ansara received top billing in the Z movie called The Doll Squad.
27.
In 1976, Michael Ansara starred in the historical epic Mohammad, Messenger of God, about the origin of Islam and the message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
28.
Michael Ansara voiced the Ancient One in the 1978 television film Dr Strange.
29.
Michael Ansara was a narrator on the PBS series Reading Rainbow.
30.
Michael Ansara was nominated for a Saturn Award, and has won a Western Heritage Award for Rawhide.
31.
On February 8,1960, Michael Ansara received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the television industry, located at 6666 Hollywood Boulevard.
32.
In 1957, when Michael Ansara was starring in the Broken Arrow television series, Booker McClay at Twentieth Century Fox arranged for him to be seen dating How to Marry a Millionaire star, Barbara Eden.
33.
Michael Ansara was already a Hollywood heartthrob with female fans around the world.
34.
Michael Ansara died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Calabasas on July 31,2013, at the age of 91.
35.
Michael Ansara's interment is at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, next to his son Matthew.