Michael Stroka

Movies were an escape and inspiration for young Michael Stroka. Forced to move from his hometown of Passaic, New Jersey, to nearby Garfield, with his family when he was in second grade, young Michael relied on his imagination to cope. "That's when I really started escaping into my own little world, and I think that's what made me decide to be an actor", he told "16" magazine years later, after gaining world-wide fame as one of the bad guys on the supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows (1966), in the late 1960s. Nearly every Saturday, Michael and a small group of friends attended movie matinées. Then, they reenact the stories they'd just watched. "I loved horror movies", he said. "I was playing "Dracula" when I was 9. I guess Dark Shadows (1966) was just a natural thing for me to grow into". Michael attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology, then moved to California to further his dream of being a movie star. First using the professional name Mike G. Stroka, he found work on stage