Michael Vale

Michael Vale, the character actor best known for his role as Fred the Baker in television commercials for Dunkin' Donuts, was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 28, 1922. He studied acting at New York City's Dramatic Workshop and made his movie debut in a bit part in director Fred Zinnemann's cinematic adaptation of Michael V. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain (1957). He made his Broadway debut in the play "The Egg" in January 1962 in support of star Michael Constantine. The play flopped, lasting a total of only eight performances. He followed it up with two more Broadway flops in 1964 before making good with "The Impossible Years," which debuted on October 13, 1965 and did not close until May 27, 1967 after a total of 670 performances. He appeared in four more plays on Broadway in the next decade, but the only hit was Neil Simon's "California Suite," for which he was a standby. While Vale never made much of an impression in movies, he appeared in over 1,300 TV commercials. The Dunkin' Donuts ads featuring his character Fred, whose signature line was "Time to make the doughnuts," ran for 15 years from 1982 until 1997, when Vale retired. Michael Vale died on December 24, 2005 in New York City of complications from diabetes. He was 83 years old.