was born in New York and is making his Broadway musical debut in Hairspray. In the interim, he has appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows, creating a rogues’ gallery of unusual and durable characters. Michael studied acting at Carnegie Mellon University and at NYU (with Olympia Dukakis) before heading out to L.A., where he joined Harry Shearer and David L. Lander in the satirical squad, The Credibility Gap. In 1976, McKean and Lander became notorious as Lenny and Squiggy, on the TV series “Laverne and Shirley.” This behavior continued for seven years, whereupon Michael segued into films: Steven Spielberg’s 1941, Used Cars, Young Doctors in Love and Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap, on which McKean shared screenwriting and composing credits. Other films include Clue; Light of Day; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; Coneheads; The Brady Bunch Movie; Jack; True Crime; and about 70 others including Christopher Guest’s The Big Picture (also co-wrote), Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. McKean has also appeared as a regular on “Saturday Night Live,” “Dream On,” “Sessions” and “Tracy Takes On” and acted as bandleader/straight man for Martin Short’s Jiminy Glick on Comedy Central. Among his many TV guest appearances: “Friends,” “Murphy Brown,” “The Simpsons,” “X Files,“ “Law & Order” and most recently as Perry White on “Smallville.” In 1999, Michael had the good sense to marry actress Annette O’Toole, with whom he wrote the Oscar-nominated song, “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” for A Mighty Wind; he also collaborated with Guest and Eugene Levy on the title song of that film, which won a Grammy this year. McKean made his Broadway debut in 1990 with Rupert Holmes’ Accomplice; this netted him a Theatre World Award. Michael and Annette have four kids altogether, and a lot of songwriting ahead of them. His work in Hairspray is, of course, for his mom.

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