(Duncan McKechnie, As the World Turns, 1986 -2002, Adam Alexander/Miles Fairchild, The Bold and the Beautiful, 1998 – 2003)
Before marking his niche on daytime, Michael Swan started his acting career in theatre, transitioning to film and primetime television. In the 70s, viewers could pretty much catch his face on many of the most iconic shows of the times such as POLICE STORY, MARCUS WELBY, M.D., DYNASTY, POLICE WOMAN, CHiPS and ROCKFORD FILES.
The Road to Daytime
Swan recalled how it all started. “I got a regular job on recurring on MEDICAL CENTER as a medical student and also a recurring part in Jack Palance’s series BRONK. That was great fun. I was kind of passed around back then, guest [star] jobs for all the different studios, and I was having a great time. And then I did a test for GUIDING LIGHT.”
The audition didn’t go like he had hoped. “That did not work out well. They didn’t know what they wanted to do with that character, and I tried to come up with things, but they didn’t necessarily like what I was coming up with, so we parted company.”
He wasn’t too worried because his primetime gigs were paying the rent. “I was still doing primetime all the time when I tested for GUIDING LIGHT, and Laurence Caso was the head of daytime on the East Coast for CBS. Bob Calhoun was the executive producer of GUIDING LIGHT at that time. He directed the test, and they were really happy with what I did in the test, but there was a taller and better-looking guy that they decided to hire instead.”
Proving that an actor doesn’t always make his own best critic, Swan found that the audition would lead to a more lucrative role on another soap. “As a result of that test, Laurence made the suggestion years later when I went in for Duncan. He suggested that I come in and test.”
The actor was in the midst of filming another memorable role as Officer Pappas in a cult classic franchise. “So I actually was doing the movie Friday the 13th, Part 6 in Georgia. It’s always the picture they remember most, which is me getting my head crushed by Jason. [laughs] Anyway, I flew from Atlanta to New York to test for WORLD TURNS.” The rest is daytime history.
Remembering Oakdale
Swan spent more than a decade portraying the rogue Scotsman, Duncan McKechnie, on the daytime drama AS THE WORLD TURNS. Fans may remember some of his famous pairings with such Oakdale lovelies as Shannon O’Hara (Margaret Reed), Lilith DeVries (Sara Botsford), Jessica Griffith (Tamara Tunie), Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk, now Jordan on YOUNG AND RESTLESS), and Emily Stewart (Kelley Menighan Hensley). Through the years, he captivated fans with storylines that found Duncan stealing the family jewels to avoid paying taxes, faking his own death, being accused of sexual assault, and being a murder suspect in the famous ATWT whodunit, Who Killed James Stenbeck (Soap twist: he wasn’t really dead).
Swan remembers a personal favorite. “Oh, I think my favorite was the remote that we did in Puerto Rico where I ran around in the jungle with my shirt off,” the actor recalled. “I had been working out very heavily, so I was in really good shape. So they said, ‘Take your shirt off.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ We had a good time. I had done so much primetime television, action-adventure stuff, so I was used to doing that kind of action-adventure. So, it was fun to do that instead of just being in the studio all the time.”
He was particularly fond of the work on the interracial storyline involving the great Tamara Tunie. “I think Tamara was brilliant and we had such sympatico.” Swan shared why they worked so well together. “We were very, very connected and we had a lot of fun doing it. And then when I came back and reprised Duncan, they had created my favorite word, SORAS [Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome]. They SORAS’d our daughter, Bonnie. She went from being like 3 to 20. And so I went back and we had a couple of great scenes, kind of funny scenes where I tell Jessica that Bonnie’s missing.
“She was just a great scene partner,” the actor had nothing but compliments for Tunie. “She was always very professional, always very prepared. And we had kind of a soap opera historical thing. We had the first interracial baby born on network television. We enjoyed great fans.”
The versatile actor also gave a nod to the great writing team on WORLD TURNS at the time. “Of course, the great Doug Marland was still with us and writing our stuff, and Marnie Winston McCauley wrote a lot of our stuff.” Swan gave kudos to other actresses that he shared screen time with. “Margaret Reed, when I first came on the show was a fun scene partner. She had a good comic instrument, and so we had a lot of fun too.”
Many of his co-stars became longtime friends. “Colleen Zenk became a very good friend. She’s now working on YOUNG AND RESTLESS. She’s just so talented.” He couldn’t help but sing her praises. “I saw her do Tallulah Bankhead up the Hudson [New York]. And she’s just a brilliant actress. And then I would go to New York and we’d visit and we’d go to a jazz club or two, and she would come to my billionaire pal’s, open house on Central Park, and we’d have a couple of glasses of wine.”
What does he think Duncan would be up to now? “Well, when he left originally, he just went back to Scotland. He never said whether he took the castle back to Scotland. He brought the castle over from Scotland but with his daughter and her husband. So he’d probably be like me, a pretty doting grandfather by now. Probably still in Scotland.”
Hello, Los Angeles
Swan joined the cast of BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL in 1998 as Adam Alexander (posing as Miles Fairchild). He commanded the screen as Sally Spectra’s (the late Darlene Conley) ex and Macy and Kimberley Alexander’s father. His character tried to do right by the saucy redhead but often put his family’s life in danger due to his shady dealings. Yet Alexander was responsible for saving his daughter Macy’s life on three different occasions.
“Most of my stuff was with Bobbie Eakes as my daughter, Macy. Those days were fun because Bobbie and I got along great,” he explained. “Her mother played by Darlene Conley. Of course, working with Darlene was always a kick in the pants. She always had stories. We had so much fun!” Their shenanigans did not go unnoticed. “In fact, the Bells thought we were having too much fun because we decided we would be kind of an Irish-fighting couple. And so we did scenes where we slammed things around and yelled, and the Bells weren’t too thrilled with that. But we got some love from Soap Opera Digest, we got a nod as Performers of the Week.”
The actor left the show in 2003. “I stayed in touch with Bobbie for several years and used to go out to Palm Springs, where she would often perform,” he revealed. “I’d go out and I’d see her and David [Steen, her husband]. And I even made some friends through them in Palm Springs. But now they’ve moved to Georgia and we’ve pretty much lost touch. I understand she’s still performing. She was and is a terrific actor and singer.”
Looking back, Swan recognized that the daytime community is more than an acting gig. Bonds are formed that can last longer than any daytime role. “There are a lot of close friendships that form when you do those shows.”
Life is a Stage
Besides many TV and film roles throughout the years, it is Swan’s theatre experiences that truly hold a piece of his heart. “My favorite thing in my entire career was doing, and I did it for seven seasons, Taming of the Shrew out in the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon.” Swan went on to explain why the role was near and dear to him. “It’s just playing Petruchio is one of the best things an actor can do. It’s so much fun. And Ellen Geer, Will’s oldest daughter, or second oldest daughter, is just a great director and wanted to do Shrew in the body style it was intended to be. And so we were just all over the place in that. I did several other plays out there. We did list Listrada, and a couple of others, and it was just a great time and experience to be there for as long as I could.”
The Voice
The ambitious thespian wasn’t satisfied with just stage, film, and television. Swan felt the need to stretch more of his creative talents – vocally, that is. “It was actually my first job when I first came to L.A.,” he disclosed on why he began utilizing his vocal skills. “I was introduced to the casting director at MGM, who was one of the founders of the CSA Gary Shaffer, and he brought me in. There was a show with the guy from GUNSMOKE, Matt Dillon, played by James Arness. James had a new series called THE MACAHANS [How the West Was Won].”
He described how it all started. “This is back in the day when they did bumpers for station breaks. And so my first job was saying, ‘The Macahans will continue in a moment.’ ” This would lead to other voiceover gigs sprinkled throughout his acting career such as Captain America: The First Avenger, and Lizard Man, before he was called in for the cult classic, We’re Alive series. “I started announcing the series 16 years ago. I came in and KC Wayland said, let’s hear you say, ‘We’re Alive.’ The people are trying to be safe from zombies. So I just said, ‘We’re Alive,’ and they liked it.”
The series We’re Alive was created by KC Wayland in 2009 and the latest addition, We’re Alive: Scout’s Honor just made its debut on March 19, and was co-written and co-produced by Elisa Eliot, who has voiced the character of Peg since the inception of the podcast series. “It’s a hugely popular podcast,” Swan went on to detail information on the popular zombie series. “So KC writes some of it, Elisa writes some of it, and I think Victoria Cheng has even written some of it. And my good friend, Tammy Klein, who’s a director-producer for Asylum, she’s who introduced me to KC. She’s one of the recurring cast members.”
Swan has reached a new cult audience with the zombie series. “I had no idea how popular it would become. I hardly even knew what a podcast was,” he confessed. “I think Scout’s Honor is going to be the last of the podcast, but KC says he wants to do a We’re Alive movie. So I think that’s where he’s going. He’s thinking seriously about making a movie out We’re Alive.”
Michael Swan shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. “I’ve been at it for 60 years, so there you go.”
Just The Facts
Birthday: June 25
Birthplace: San Jose, CA.
Pedigree: the son of actress Alys Lucille (née Wilkinson) and Donald Arthur Swan
Other Soaps: DAYS OF OUR LIVES (Frank Royce 1983), SANTA BARBARA (Doctor, 1984 – 1985), GUIDING LIGHT (Brad Green 2003), ONE LIFE TO LIVE (Reverend John Carpenter 1996 – 1997)
Alive and Well: Other shows in the podcast series: We’re Alive: Lockdown 2016, We’re Alive: Goldrush 2019, We’re Alive: Descendants 2022- 2023, and We’re Alive: Scouts Honor 2024.
Just the Facts, Ma’am: Besides Friday the 13th, Part 6, Swan played a cop in numerous films and television such as Miracle in the Valley, Heartbeat, THE BLUE KNIGHT, BRONK, POLICE STORY, JOE FORRESTER, THE HARDY BOYS/NANCY DREW MYSTERIES, MAN FROM ATLANTIS, GALATICA 1980, and V.
