AllMovie

The product of a large, loud Baltimore family, Michael Tucker was fourteen when he first concentrated his excess energy into acting, appearing as a "Lost Boy" in a community theatre production of Peter Pan. On the advice of a high school teacher, Tucker enrolled in the drama department at Carnegie Tech., were he rapidly became one of the prize students. From 1966 through 1976, Tucker played an exhausting variety of roles with such regional companies as the Long Wharf Theater, the Milwaukee Rep and Washington's Arena Stage, supplementing his income as a college acting coach (During his days in Milwaukee, Tucker claimed that he'd previously been the youngest stand-up comedian on the Catskills circuit; then again, he also claimed to be three years younger than he actually was). He made his Broadway bow in a 1976 revival of Trelawny of the Wells. Two years later he began his film career, which gained momentum after his portrayal of restaurateur Bagel in Barry Levinson's Diner (1982) and peaked with solid roles in such Woody Allen films as The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Radio Days (1986). In 1986, Tucker began an eight-season run as Stuart Markowitz on the prime-time TV hit LA Law. The series was produced by Tucker's onetime Carnegie classmate Stephen Bochco, and co-starred Mrs. Tucker, aka actress Jill Eikenberry, who reteamed with her husband in the made-for-TV films Assault and Matrimony (1987) and The Secret Life of Archie's Wife (1990). Outside of LA Law, Michael Tucker's most prestigious TV assignment thus far has been the role of refugee scientist Leo Szilard in Day One, a 1989 docudrama about the Manhattan Project.