Biography
Actors Studio-graduate Michael J. Pollard was first thrust upon the public as Maynard G. Krebs' funky cousin on the 1959 TV series Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). The leprechaunish Pollard had been hired as a potential replacement for
Bob Denver (aka Maynard), who'd been drafted; but when Denver flunked his physical and returned to the series, Pollard was shown the exit. He went on to co-star in the 1961 musical
Bye Bye Birdie (1961), then made his film debut in Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962). Pollard earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the moronic C.W.Moss in
Bonnie and Clyde (1967); he followed this triumph by sharing co-star billing with
Robert Redford in Little Fauss & Big Halsey (1969), and by essaying the role of Billy the Kid in
Dirty Little Billy (1972). In all the above-mentioned films, as well as his many TV appearances in series like
The Andy Griffith Show,
Lost in Space and
Star Trek, Pollard essentially played the same character: a slow-witted, stammering child-man, ever out of step with an unfeeling world. Audiences eventually tired of Pollard's one-note characterizations. No longer a star, Michael J. Pollard has continued accepting sizeable character roles in films, and was seen as Leonard the handyman in the 1986 TV sitcom Leo and Liz in Beverly Hills. In 1990, Michael J. Pollard was reunited with his
Bonnie and Clyde co-star
Warren Beatty in
Dick Tracy, playing the amusing supporting part of police wiretapper Bug Bailey (also in the
Tracy cast was another B&C alumnus,
Estelle Parsons). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide