Mike Lane obit

MICHAEL V. LANE

January 6, 1933 to June 1, 2015

A giant character actor

 He was not on the list.

Michael V. Lane, an actor known for his titanic size, wrestling prowess, and indelible roles as Frankenstein and Hercules, died on Monday, June 1st, in Palmdale, CA, his daughter, Cristin Layne, at his side. He was 82.

A towering, 6-foot-8, 278-pound giant, Lane appeared in movies with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Tallulah Bankhead. He liked to say he was part of the Golden Age of Hollywood and the Golden Age of Wrestling.

Due to his formidable size, he began wrestling as a member of the King Brothers & Christiani Circus, a three ring circus that traveled the country. Housed in a special boxing and wrestling tent, Lane took on all comers.

Tarzan Mike

He turned professional in 1952, under the name of Tarzan Mike. Discovered by Columbia Pictures, he made his acting debut as a boxer in The Harder They Fall (1956), Humphrey Bogart’s final picture With Tallulah Bankhead.

Born in Washington D.C on January 6, 1933, Mike was the only child of Alice and Maxwell Gorvit. Growing up, he excelled in wrestling, the sport that allowed him to find acceptance as an adult. He later changed his name from Gorvit to Lane.

Thrilled at being chosen for a lead role in his first film, Lane’s life was forever changed, the big, hulking giant now a movie star. He went on to make ten films and more than 40 TV series, often appearing in multiple episodes, classic shows such as Maverick, Have Gun Will Travel, The Untouchables, Get Smart and Mission Impossible.

His first film, The Harder They Fall, was critically acclaimed and became a classic, especially in boxing circles. It concerns a broke, out-of-work newspaper reporter, Eddie Willis (Humphrey Bogart) who agrees to work for a corrupt boxing promoter, Nick Benko (Rod Steiger) to help hype his new boxer, Toro Moreno (Mike Lane).

In a 1956 review of the film, Bosley Crowther wrote:

The hoax is a gargantuan boxer with no more class than a paper towel is built up with ballyhoo and fixed fights into a challenger for the heavyweight crown … a boxer who is foolish enough to think he’s good. Mike Lane looks a mammoth hunk of prime beef among the various toughs and plug-uglies, played by Max Baer, Herbie Faye, Jersey Joe Walcott, Pat Comiskey, Abel Fernandez and several more.

The Bogart character is faced with the decision of whether or not to tell Toro that his entire career is a sham.

Lane liked to talk about how prepared for the role. After studio execs heard that a “perfect Toro” was wrestling in Texas, they sent for Lane and he killed the audition. He had come up with an accent somewhere between the fighter his character was patterned after, Primo Carnera, an Italian professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1933 to 1934, and the Argentinian boxer Guillermo Roca.

The studio gave him dramatic and boxing lessons that molded him into the menacing boxer sans killer instinct. When it came to fighting Max Baer in the movie, Lane didn’t hold back, which pleased the director, Mike Robson. In one scene, when Lane knocked Baer to the floor for real, Robson later said: “Mike hit him good cause Max was not that good an actor.”

The “chicken from hell”

Lane had no trouble with savage mayhem as the Megazoid, an oversized “chicken from hell” monster featured in “The Duplicate Man,” a second season episode of Outer Limits. He played the Frankenstein monster in the 1958 film Frankenstein 1970 and made numerous appearances as a monster in the Saturday morning show, The Monster Squad. In “The Hunted,” a 1958 segment of the TV series Sugarfoot, Lane played a big, lumbering, mentally-unbalanced former cavalryman wanted for robbery and murder by a group of bounty hunters.

His immense height and powerful personal made him ideal to play such film roles as Hercules in 1992’s Ulysses and the Son of Hercules, as well as Fats in A Name of Evil (1973), and TV parts such as Daddy Longlegs in two episodes of the 1967’s Batman.

Lane is survived by his only child, Cristin Layne of Palmdale.

Filmography

Film

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1956    The Harder They Fall       Toro Moreno           

1957    Hell Canyon Outlaws            Henchman Nels         

1958            Frankenstein 1970            Hans Himmler / The Monster          

1960    Who Was That Lady?   Glinka 

1961    Valley of the Dragons            Anoka 

1962    Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules            Hercules          

1967    The Way West            Sioux Chief   

1968    Stay Away, Joe            Frank Hawk  

1972    The New Centurions            Lumberjack     

1973    The No Mercy Man            Big Jack    

1973    A Name for Evil            Fats     

1975    Gone with the West            Shark  

1975    The Master Gunfighter            Frewen

1976    Zebra Force            Carmine Longo           

1983    Stryker            Kardis 

1987    Code Name: Zebra            Carmine Longo           

1988            Grotesque       Frank N. Stien            Also producer

1991    Curse of the Crystal Eye      Hashim

1994    Demon Keeper            Asmodeus (The Demon)           

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1957    Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers                        Episode: "Test of a Titan"

1957            Cheyenne         Chuck Welch            Episode: "Decision at Gunsight"

1957–1958            Schlitz Playhouse of Stars    Patient            2 episodes

1957–1959            Maverick        Horace Cusack / Noah Perkins 2 episodes

1958    Death Valley Days            Big Bat Pourier            Episode: "The Greatest Scout of All"

1958    The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok Chief Red Cloud            Episode: "The Daughter of Casey O'Grady"

1958            Decision                      Episode: "Night of the Stranger"

1958            Sugarfoot         John Allman            Episode: "The Hunted"

1959    Steve Canyon            Bartender            Episode: "The Sergeant"

1959    The Rough Riders            Carl            Episode: "The Last Rebel"

1959    Man Without a Gun              Episode: "The Giant"

1959    Have Gun – Will Travel   Waller            Season 3, Episode 9: "The Black Handkerchief"

1960    The Untouchables            James Stenbeck            Episode: "Syndicate Sanctuary"

1960    Hotel de Paree            Jackson            Episode: "Sundance and the Bare-Knuckled Fighters"

1960    The Man from Blackhawk            Lembrick            Episode: "The Hundred Thousand Dollar Policy"

1960            Bourbon Street Beat            Monito            Episode: "Green Hell"

1961    The Tab Hunter Show   Carlos            Episode: "Personal Appearance"

1964    The Outer Limits            The Megasoid            Episode: "The Duplicate Man"

1965            Branded          Trask            Episode: "Mightier Than the Sword"

1966–1969            Daniel Boone  Bear Barnett / Ike            2 episodes

1967    Batman            Daddy Longlegs            2 episodes

1967    Hondo            Moon Dog            Episode: "Hondo and the Superstition Massacre"

1968    The Monkees            Frankenstein            S2:E18, "Monstrous Monkee Mash"

1969    Love, American Style            Roger            Segment: "Love and the Positive Man"

1970    Get Smart            Centurion            Episode: "Smartacus"

1971            Mission: Impossible            Lew Bates            Episode: "The Connection"

1972    Adam-12        Art Moss            Episode: "Citizens All"

1972            Gunsmoke      Digby            Episode: "Sarah"

1972            Ironside          Nick Marcatti            Episode: "Buddy, Can You Spare a Life?"

1972    The Sixth Sense            Sam Fenwick            Episode: "If I Should Die Before I Wake"

1973            Emergency!      Tall Biker            Episode: "Frequency"

1976    Gemini Man     Guard            Episode: "Pilot"

1976            Monster Squad            Frank N. Stein            13 episodes

1976–1977            The Rockford Files            Tony / Fred     2 episodes

1977    Kojak            Curly            Episode: "The Queen of Hearts Is Wild"

1977    Quincy, M.E.    Rossi            Episode: "A Question of Time"

1977    Starsky & Hutch            Eddie Mayer            Episode: "The Crying Child"

1982    Matt Houston            Reject            Episode: "X-22"

1982    Knight Rider    Jerry            Episode: "Forget Me Not"

1983    Simon & Simon            Bodyguard #1            Episode: "Bail Out"

1986    Cold War Killers            Foreman            Television film