Biographie
Michael DeBartolo earned Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Engineering from Michigan State University and UCLA, where he also pursued acting studies and was admitted to UCLA's MPTV Program. He trained under renowned actors and directors including Ivan Curry, Jerome Guardino, Art Friedman, and George Peppard.
While employed as an engineer at Boeing in El Segundo, California, he performed in numerous plays and musicals throughout Los Angeles and Hollywood. He secured featured roles in both film and television. His film credits include The Blues Brothers (1980), The Patricia Neal Story (1981), Moving Violations (1985), Hail Caesar! (2016), How to Be a Latin Lover (2017), City of Lies (2018), and Ford V. Ferrari (2019). His television appearances include Taxi (1981), The Bernie Mac Show (2005), CSI: New York (2005), Sons and Daughters (2006), Make It or Break It (2011), Vegas (2012), 90201 (2013), Dads (2013), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2014), Mad Men (2014), State of Affairs (2015), Jane the Virgin (2015), Bosch (2016), Idiotsitter (2016), Heartbeat (2016), People Magazine Investigates (2016), Shameless (2017), and Corporate (2018).
He progressed to more prominent and leading roles in film and television. Notably, he portrayed Frankie Valli’s uncle in Jersey Boys (2014), Ron DeFeo Sr., the father in The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist (2016), and an undercover officer/hitman for Al Capone in Gangster Land (2017). On television, he played Arman, Peter Schaefer’s tailor in Windfall (2006), Bill Morrisey in Unusual Suspects (2006), Keith Dahl in It Takes a Killer (2016), the Theme Park Dad in If Theme Parks Were Honest - Honest Ads (2017), the Italian Dad from Jersey Shores in Laff Mobb's Laff Tracks (2018), Howard Beaird in The Holzer Files (2019), Steve Smith in People Magazine Investigates (2019), and Mr. Ghonim in A Wedding and a Murder (2019). Additionally, he wrote, produced, and starred as Mr. Dean, a science teacher, in Adventures with Baaco (1995), a PBS-aired show now available on YouTube that won the Worldfest Houston Bronze Award and received endorsement from the Kids First! Coalition for Quality Children's Media.
Michael has also appeared in commercials and music videos. In commercials, he portrayed the Flower Shop Owner for Papas Sabritas (2015) featuring Enrique Iglesias, the Baseball Dad for Loan Depot (2017), the Surgeon for Keck Medicine of USC (2017), and the Basketball Dad for Ring Home Security (2018). In music videos, he appeared as the Wedding Minister in Wale's The Matrimony (2015) featuring Usher, a Bird Box Drifter in Hopsin's You Should've Known (2019) featuring DAX, and an Angry Executive in Machine Gun Kelly's Downfalls High (2021).
