Leaving school in 1969, Michael worked as a messenger boy at Cinerama International Releasing Organisation (later Cinerama Releasing UK) and became a press officer there. He later worked as a publicist at Columbia-Warner Film Distributors. He was an extra in a number of films, and began directing plays in 1974. He has acted on stage and in minor parts on television.

In the 1970s he worked for a while as a journalist, first at "Film Review" and then "Photoplay." He has written more than twenty books on the cinema since 1981, including biographies of Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier.