- Born
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- Mike Cartel was born on March 22, 1948 in Pasadena, California, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Runaway Nightmare (1982), Bitter Heritage (1979) and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). He has been married to Mari Cartel since April 12, 1977. They have two children.
- SpouseMari Cartel(April 12, 1977 - present) (2 children)
- Mike Cartel's maternal great grandfather, George Foster, a typesetter from Illinois raced a wagon in 1889 when the Oklahoma territory opened to the first who won (with a claim) the 'land run' homestead race (where some 100,000 participated). When Foster arrived at the water stop of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, he sat up the first newspaper (two other newspapers opened the same day) in the new rail head of Guthrie (and new capitol of Oklahoma). By the turn of the century, when Guthrie lost its capitol status to Oklahoma City, Foster accepted a position at the Kansas City Star newspaper as Theater Critic and later as Night Editor, when Walt Disney was a newsie, (future president) Harry S. Truman worked the mail room and (later) Ernest Hemingway was a cub reporter.
- Mike Cartel's father (Eldon Short) owned one of the largest traveling carnivals in the world, Crafts 20 Big Shows. The Crafts midway is the carnival used in the film "Strangers On A Train," (1951)_ directed by 'Alfred Hitchcock (l)' and the movie "The Roustabout" (1964)_ with Elvis Presley.
- Drafted into the Army in March of 1968, Cartel got a five-month postponement from the draft board to finish working on a film. He later spent a year in Vietnam as a combat soldier.
- Cartel did most of his own movie stunts that included a running leap onto the wing support of a traveling airplane that briefly went airborne in "Bitter Heritage" (1979)_. The hired stunt double refused to perform the scene because of its danger.
- Cartel was a reserve Los Angeles Police Department cop from 1982 through 1984 at the LAPD North Hollywood station.
- [on Runaway Nightmare (1982) ] I wrote previously that I hoped this would not be the film that I was remembered for. However, the new cinephile community has humbled me into reexamining my journey. Each frame of this 8460-foot rediscovered masterpiece tells a better story than the sum of its parts projected on a screen.
- [Introduction at the Austin 'Ritz Cinema' 2014 premiere of Runaway Nightmare (1982) ] The marque out front says that this is 'The life's work of a dedicated lunatic.' I would like to thank those responsible for that surpassing compliment.
- [On directing amateur actors on Runaway Nightmare (1982)] Most of the performers were non-cinema actors, and I knew from coaching drama that you must first keep amateurs from over-acting. Also, most/many actors are scared moments before performing, and rely on a patient, trusted director to assist them through one scene to the next. So having started as an actor in no-rehearsal, one-take TV, I tried to be an actor's director. when the camera rolls, even some pros will mug to avoid (what they fear as) being dull and wooden. So their temptation is to work outside-in, to get grandiloquent and arch their brows, vex their lips, as one might act in a Clyde Fitch play. The problem is that a stage facial gesture will appear as a 15-foot eyebrow flying madly across the theater screen.
- God couldn't be everywhere, that's why he made film critics.
- I'm a carny; I look down on no one.
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