Michael Dunn

I love it when an interview opportunity lands in my lap.  I first found out about Sherry Kelly’s book about her cousin (The Big Life of a Little Man, Michael Dunn Remembered) from friend of the blog, Amy H. Sturgis. Kelly was willing to be email interviewed about the book. Here is the official description of the book: “”With the help of a treasure trove of letters, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and personal journal entries from his mother, author Sherry Kelly has compiled a touching and comprehensive account of the life of Michael Dunn, the famous little person actor of the sixties and seventies. Michael was well known as Dr. Loveless in The Wild Wild West TV series and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the movie Ship of Fools. Dunn lived an amazing life from childhood until his mysterious death in London while filming a movie.” My thanks to Kelly for her time and to Sturgis for making me aware of this fascinating book.

Tim O’Shea: I take it that given the fact you had access to “letters, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and personal journal entries from his mother” in preparing the book, you were fairly close to your aunt? Given that she died in 1990, I was wondering–did she hope someone might try to write a book about her son some day?

Sherry Kelly: (Note: I will be referring to my cousin both as “Gary” and “Michael”.)  My mother and Gary’s mother were sisters and our families were very close. Both families lived on the same block in Detroit during Gary’s early childhood and then when Gary was 12-13 years old, my parents along with my older sister, LaRee, and older brother, Tim, and I, moved back to Oklahoma to be near our grandparents who were in declining health. Even with all the distance between us the families remained close and mother and my aunt kept up with all their respective news through letter writing. Telephone calls were expensive back then, considered a luxury, and made only occasionally – on birthdays or to report emergencies. Gary was especially close to my sister and brother who were nearer to him in age. Gary’s parents, Fred and Jewell Miller, moved back to Oklahoma to be near us in their later years. They had no other children and our family looked after Aunt Jewell during the last 15 years or so of her life.

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