Michael Worth: From the Backyard to the Back Lot
Michael Worth: From the Backyard to the Back LotBy Edward Pollard |
Home Base: Los Angeles Where You’ve Seen Him: Dual, The King of Queens, U.S. Seals II Martial Arts Experience: aikido, jeet kune do, kali, tang soo do, judo If you grew up before the age of the camcorder, chances are your family owned an 8mm movie camera. After capturing a few special moments on film, your father probably mailed the reels to the lab and waited for them to come back so they could be projected on the wall for all to enjoy. If you had any artistic ability, you might have felt inspired enough to ask your dad for permission to use the camera for more elaborate projects. If that shoe fits, you’re not all that different from Michael Worth. “At age 12, I got interested in making films,” he says. “I was also interested in the martial arts, so I started taking aikido. Then I saw Enter the Dragon and went, ‘Wow, I want to be like that.’ ” By that time, Worth had acquired a couple of Super-8 cameras, which he used to film people in his backyard. “I began writing scripts, doing special effects and animating little dolls,” he says. “Movies and martial arts were my two interests in life.” He set aside his cameras long enough to finish high school, then moved to Venice, California, to make movies. Because finances were tight, he was forced to live out of his truck. “I met a manager, who said I should do commercials, and I got swept into that world pretty fast,” he says. “I started doing stunts, and when I was 17 or 18, I got my first film: Final Impact, with Lorenzo Lamas.” Worth climbed the Hollywood ladder by acting in several kickboxing films, then landed a role in a TV series called Acapulco H.E.A.T. “I ended up doing that for three years,” he says. “I did martial arts, but the show was more like Baywatch with guns.” Still harboring aspirations to direct and produce, Worth was unsatisfied. “I wanted to have more control of my destiny, so I went back to my childhood roots in writing,” he says. “I put projects together to help friends like Gary Busey, Adrienne Barbeau and Jeff Fahey raise money, then started producing. In the past four years, I’ve produced eight films, directed two of them, written five of them and acted in half of them.”
The first motion picture Worth produced under the Grizzly Peak label was one he also wrote: Ghost Rock. “It was a Western I’d wanted to do for a couple of years, but I couldn’t get the financing until I added martial arts to the story line,” he says. A disciple of mental self-defense guru Tony Blauer, Worth is now a Hollywood insider. His advice for up-and-comers out to make a name for themselves, whether in the martial arts or some other endeavor, is simple: “Whatever the creative bug is that’s burning inside you, when you finally get a chance to set it free and get paid for it, do it. There’s nothing better than that.” 
Michael Worth: From the Backyard to the Back Lot |
