Biography for
Michael Parks (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

24 April 1940, Corona, California, USA

Birth Name

Harry Samuel Parks

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Spouse

Carolyn ?	(1969 - ?) 2 stepchildren
Jan Moriarty	(1964 - 2 March 1964) (her death)
?	(1955 - ?) (divorced) 1 child
Oriana Parks	(? - ?)

Trivia

Lived on a Yacht in the Monterey, California harbor in the early 1980s.

The theme song "Long Lonesome Highway" from Parks' TV series "Then Came Bronson" (1969), sung by Parks' himself, was penned by James Hendricks, a Greenwich Village folky who was married to "Mama" Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas, not by Jimi Hendrix. The song became a Top 40 hit in 1970.

Picked fruit, dug ditches, drove trucks and fought forest fires.

Turned down an offer to play minor league baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates because he was making more money upholstering caskets.

Attempted to qualify for the 1972 Olympics as a miler, running a time of 4:06.

Recorded a half-dozen country/blues albums in the late sixties and early seventies and one "Cooling soup" in the late nineties.

He played Earl McGraw, the police officer with bad puns, in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and then played Esteban Vinaio, the 80-year-old, smooth Mexican pimp who once was Bill's mentor in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004).

The official Kill Bill websites claim that he is "frequently cited by longtime fan Quentin Tarantino as the world's greatest living actor.".

Was a close friend of legendary director Jean Renoir.

Father of actor James Parks.

He has played the character of Earl McGraw in three separate films involving Quentin Tarantino: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Grindhouse (2007) (both Death Proof (2007) and Planet Terror (2007)).

He was a pall bearer for Lenny Bruce.

Was discovered by Frank Silvera while acting in a play entitled "Compulsion" at age 18.

Where Are They Now

(May 2005) Played the lead in "One night with you."

(2006) Plays the lead, an aging, misguided NSA listener in indie thriller The Listening (2006).

(1996) Filming a new movie Julian Po (1997) with Christian Slater and Robin Tunney.

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