Michael Cornelison(1952-2011)

Michael Cornelison began his professional career as an actor in 1967, at the age of fifteen, appearing in a series of educational shorts for Coronet Films. In 1974, Michael co-starred with Cliff Robertson and Robert Preston in the ABC-TV movie, My Father's House (1975). In 1978, Cornelison returned to Los Angeles for an extended run. He completed pilots for three television series: Nightside (1980), "Inspector Perez" and Family in Blue (1982). He also guest-starred on many series in the mid-eighties, including Hill Street Blues (1981), Remington Steele (1982), Dallas (1978), Knots Landing (1979) and The Greatest American Hero (1981), among others. Michael also starred in and co-produced Stephen King's The Woman in the Room (1984), the first collaboration between Stephen King and Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999)). In 1984, he was lured back to the Midwest by the prospect of being artistic director of his own theatre, "The Two Rivers Acting Company". In the ensuing two decades, Michael has appeared in a wide variety of plays, including classics such as "A Man For All Seasons", "Inherit The Wind", "Of Mice And Men" and "To Kill A Mockingbird" and contemporary works like "Camping With Henry And Tom", "Sideman", "The Guys" and "The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare" (Abridged). He also served as artistic director of "Rejection Slip Theatre", a radio comedy/drama anthology which ran on WHO radio for over ten years. In addition, Cornelison has done a great deal of work, in partnership with writer/director Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition (2002)), having appeared in no less than five films for Collins, Mommy (1995), Mommy II: Mommy's Day (1997), Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2001), Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life (2005) and "Three Women". Cornelison also narrated Collin's award-winning documentary, "Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane". Other film work included an appearance in Rain (2001), produced by Martin Scorsese. He has recently recorded "A Little Death", a Mike Hammer adventure audio novel, starring Stacy Keach as Hammer, and will play "Captain Pat Chambers" in a second Hammer story, "Encore for Murder". Both written by Max Allan Collins and based on original material by the late Mickey Spillane. He makes his home in Iowa with his wife, Cindi, and his son, Nick Cornelison.