Biography

Grampa Mike worked on the IH farm machinery assembly line in Chicago before WWI. Opened a candy store in Chatham ON where he met the beautiful Rosamund Moore. "Grandma Rosie" gave him three sons. An Edward G. Robinson lookalike, Mike followed the lead of his countrymen Spyros Skouras and Alexander Pantages into the vaudeville cinema show business and built a handful of theatres including Sarnia's original Imperial - half the size of Toronto's Pantages (now the Canon Theatre). The 800-seat Imperial was swept away by a triple tornado in 1953. My Great UncleJack Logan managed the Capital Vaudeville Theatre in London ON - hometown of Jack Warner, Ned Sparks, Gene Lockhart, Aimee Semple MacPherson and the Lombardo Brothers. That movie palace was also demolished - this time by the wrecking ball. But the Sarnia Imperial lives on having morphed into a Blue Water area community auditorium at the former Famous Players/Paramount Capital , near the library and museum and our 19th Century gabled brick house on Queen Street, my Devine Street PS, where public grade-school classes integrated Native children from Kettle Point, Ipperwash, Walpole Island & other First Nations. And nearby Sarnia's Collegiate Institute where I was in school with novelist Marian Engle and veteran news-anchor Tony Parsons. I always knew I was destined for the stage after my high-school idol ("It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World") Soupy Sales drove the 60 miles from WXYZ Detroit to emcee a talent show. Here was the hippest, funniest man alive in 1954 making us laugh with a zanyness akin to Jerry Lewis or Jim Carrey (both of whom I've worked with on films). The Soup was also a hipster blues & jazz afficiando with a wild Mon-Fri midnight "Soupy's On" variety show featuring stars like Dizzy Gillespie & Al Hibler & T-Bone Walker sandwiched between his hilarious comedy sketches like "Gaylord the Mississippi Gambler on the SS Kielbasa" featuring Flash Gordon & the Polka Chips".
- IMDb mini biography by: Jason Logan (ACTRA/PRS)