John Michael Beck Taylor (born February 4, 1949), commonly known as Michael Beck, is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor, perhaps best known for his role as Swan in the 1979 film, The Warriors.

Life and career

Beck was born in Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, the third of nine children. He attended Memphis University School

Memphis University School

Memphis University School is an all-male private school for grades 7–12, located in Memphis, Tennessee.-History:MUS was founded in 1893 by Edwin Sidney Werts and James White Sheffey Rhea. MUS is a college-preparatory school. The school's colors, red and blue, were chosen by the founders to...

 and then Millsaps College

Millsaps College

Millsaps College is a private liberal arts college located in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1890, the college is recognized as one of the country's best private colleges dedicated to undergraduate teaching and educating the whole individual. Affiliated with the United Methodist Church, Millsaps...

 in Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...

, on a football scholarship. While in college he was initiated into Kappa Alpha Order

Kappa Alpha Order

Kappa Alpha Order is a social fraternity and fraternal order. Kappa Alpha Order has 124 active chapters, 3 provisional chapters, and 2 commissions...

 fraternity. After graduating with a degree in Economics, he was one of 30 (out of 2,500) applicants chosen for London's Central School of Speech and Drama

Central School of Speech and Drama

The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...

. Michael's stage credits, beginning with college, include: Camelot

Camelot (musical)

Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....

(he was King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

); and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...

. Besides acting, his hobbies include reading, music and cooking.

Beck is known predominantly for his roles as "Swan" in the action film The Warriors (1979), "Sonny Malone" in Xanadu

Xanadu (film)

Xanadu is a 1980 romantic musical fantasy film written by Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the poem "Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is quoted in the film. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province...

(1980), "Lieutenant-Commander Dallas" in Megaforce

Megaforce

Megaforce is an action film made in 1982 directed by former stuntman Hal Needham. The film starred Barry Bostwick, Persis Khambatta, Michael Beck, Edward Mulhare, Evan C...

(1982), and as "Koda" in "Triumphs of a Man Called Horse" (1982). (Both the Xanadu and Megaforce roles garnered him Razzie nominations for Worst Actor and Worst Supporting Actor respectively.) Beck also appeared in other movies such as Warlords of the 21st Century

Warlords of the 21st Century

Warlords of the 21st Century is a science fiction film starring Michael Beck....

, The Last Ninja, The Golden Seal (as an evil poacher), "Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story" (as Clarence Carnes

Clarence Carnes

Clarence Victor Carnes known as The Choctaw Kid was a Choctaw Indian famous as the youngest inmate sentenced to Alcatraz, and for his participation in the bloody escape attempt known as the "Battle of Alcatraz".-Early life:Clarence Carnes was born in Daisy, Oklahoma, the oldest of five children...

), "Rearview Mirror", the 1984 TV movie "Blackout", and Wes Craven's Chiller

Wes Craven's Chiller

Chiller, or as it is sometimes known Wes Craven's Chiller, is a made for TV horror/thriller released in 1985. It was directed by Wes Craven, and written by J.D. Feigelson.- Synopsis :...

(as a cryonically

Cryonics

Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...

 suspended sociopath

Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...

). He read for, but did not get, the role of Sir Lancelot in John Boorman

John Boorman

John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...

's movie Excalibur

Excalibur (film)

Excalibur is a 1981 dramatic fantasy film directed, produced and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Adapted from the 15th century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, Excalibur features the music of Richard Wagner...

. Michael starred in a short-lived television series, Houston Knights

Houston Knights

Houston Knights was a television crime drama set in Houston, Texas. The show ran on CBS from 1987 to 1988 and had 31 episodes. The core of the show was the partnership between two very different cops from two different cultures...

(1987), in the role of "Sgt. Levon Lundy." More recently, Beck starred in television shows JAG

JAG (TV series)

JAG is an American adventure/legal drama television show that was produced by Belisarius Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television and, for the first season only, NBC Productions...

, Robin's Hoods, Walker Texas Ranger (in the episodes Flashpoint and A Difficult Peace), "In the Heat of the Night (TV Series), and as the Mars-born terrorist-turned-cyborg assassin "Abel Horn" in the science fiction TV series Babylon 5

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created, produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. The show centers on a space station named Babylon 5: a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and conflict during the years 2257–2262...

1994 episode "A Spider in the Web

A Spider in the Web

"A Spider in the Web" is an episode from the second season of the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-Synopsis:An old friend of Talia Winters, Taro Isogi, is on Babylon 5 to conduct negotiations with various large corporations on making reforms on Mars colony...

", and as "Mr.Jones" in the spinoff series Crusade

Crusade (TV series)

Crusade is a spin-off TV show from J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. Its plot is set in AD 2267, five years after the events of Babylon 5, and just after the movie A Call to Arms. A race called the Drakh have released a nanovirus plague on Earth, which will destroy all life on Earth within five...

 (episode The Well of Forever).

Michael has narrated numerous audiobooks of John Grisham

John Grisham

John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...

's novels. He has also narrated Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz

Tony Horwitz

Tony Horwitz is an American journalist and writer. His works include Blue Latitudes or Into the Blue, One for the Road, Confederates In The Attic, Baghdad Without A Map, and A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. His next book Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked...

; A Darkness More Than Light by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards...

; State of the Union by David Callahan

David Callahan

David Callahan is a co-founder of the think tank Demos, a public policy group based in New York City, where he is currently a Senior Fellow. He is also an author, commentator, and lecturer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the books The Cheating Culture and The Moral Center. Callahan is a...

; and the unabridged version of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

's My Life. He also lent his voice to the popular video game adaptation of The Warriors

The Warriors (video game)

The Warriors is a beat 'em up video game published by Rockstar Games. It was released on October 17, 2005 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, and February 12, 2007 for PlayStation Portable. The game is based on the 1979 film, The Warriors...

 (2005).

Beck lives in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 with his songwriter-wife Cari (they celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in September 2010), and with their two children: daughter Ashley and son Jesse. According to Michael, neither of his kids act or play football.

Quotes

• "The Warriors opened a lot of doors in film for me, which Xanadu then closed."
• "One rule of thumb which my parents handed down to me, and which I've handed down to my kids, is this: 'You won't get respect just because of a name or a title, but your name and title just might get respect because of you.' It's never failed us yet."

External links