Robin Hood legend to reunite with Emmerdale co-star on Celebrity MasterChef
His shock death in the Emmerdale sweet factory fire left his legion of loyal fans up in arms. Especially those of a certain age. But on Tuesday night Dynasty and Robin of Sherwood heartthrob Michael Praed is finally back on our screens.
For four years after his alter-ego Frank Clayton sacrificed himself to save daughter Tracy, viewers will see Michael reunited with his Emmerdale co-star Amy Walsh once more.
Fortunately we’re not being asked to believe yet another soap character is making an unlikely return from the dead, a la EastEnders’ Cindy Beale. Because Michael and Amy’s reunion is not in the Yorkshire Dales but the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen. And this time the only thing that might end up burnt are their main courses.
Michael and Amy’s reunion is not in the Yorkshire Dales but the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen“I had no idea that Amy was going on the programme until I walked into the TV studios ready for filming,” says Michael, 63, who became a fan favourite on the soap between 2016 and 2019. "It was the most wonderful surprise. Amy did feel like my family. I’m grateful that MasterChef brought us back together," he said.
Their last meeting had not been so sweet. Amy previously called his shock Emmerdale death a “harrowing experience”, claiming he’d been “like a second dad” to her. Angry fans likewise took to social media in their masses to complain one of their favourites had been killed off - with some even threatenignto boycott the soap.
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For Michael however it was nothing new. Having cemented his place in the hearts of telly fans back in the 1980s - first in Robin of Sherwood and then as Prince Michael, heir to the European Kingdom of Moldovia, in Dynasty - he’d already experienced the “brutal” side of the TV industry.
Michael and Amy’s reunion is not in the Yorkshire Dales but the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen (BBC)”I was really sad to be killed off in Emmerdale,” says Michael, 63. “But that’s the business! We actors are pragmatic. It’s a brutal, brutal game. I had three cherished years and, by the end of it had become so close to all the cast and crew. It was hard to say goodbye. I moved up north for the show and loved living there. Northerners are wonderful - the most friendly, funny lovely people.”
He may have gone out with a bang - literally - but in terms of dramatic scenes, little could compete Michael’s storylines in the original Dynasty. For he was front and centre of US hit soap’s most explosive cliffhanger ever - the Moldavian wedding massacre.
In the infamous 1985 season finale, Prince Michael was about to wed Amanda Carrington - long lost daughter to Alexis (Joan Collins) and Blake (John Forsythe), when terrorists spray the chapel with bullets, leaving fans (and stars) with a several-month wait to find out who had survived. It was Dynasty’s answer to Dallas’s Who Shot JR Ewing.
”It was the cliffhangers of all cliffhangers for everyone because nobody in the cast had a clue who really was dead either,“ he remembers. “When were told about the scene, the whole cast was brought together, and we were each given five different pieces of paper. And there were five different endings because the producers were terrified, that if we shot just one it was somehow going to get leaked.
“Also a lot of people’s contracts were up. So actors were nervous. Your contract’s up and you end up in a version of a scene where you’re killed but have no idea if that’s the real one or not.”
Luckily most of the main cast all dodged a bullet, but Michael soon saw his prince written out anyway after he was exiled from Moldova in 1986. Somewhat fittingly, Michael had actually been born Michael David Prince in Berkley, Gloucestershire, in 1960 but changed his name to Praed (Cornish for Meadow, but picked out the phone book) whilst paying his dues, as actors’ union Equity already had a ‘Michael Prince’ on its books.
Michael starred in Dynasty for years (Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)Bizarrely when he became a Prince again in Dynasty, his co-star Catherine Oxenberg (Amanda) was a real royal - her mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, making her third cousins with King Charles.
Not that Michael knew this until now. “Well she never mentioned it!” he says. In fact, he was far more impressed to be working with a certain member of Hollywood royalty.
“Catherine was lovely but my favourite person to work with was Dame Joan Collins - without a doubt,” he says. “She was the unmistakable star of the series because she was significantly better than everyone else. I was relatively inexperienced when I worked on Dynasty, and I was just in awe working with Joan - funny, very professional and an excellent actress. I learnt so much from her.”
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He’s also kept in touch with fellow British Dynasty alumni Emma Samms, who played Fallon Carrington, saying, “I guess we’re part of an exclusive club.”
For many fans however, the role Michael will always be remembered for is actually the one before he joined Dynasty, then the number one US show: his first big TV break on Robin of Sherwood.
The actor was just 24 when he landed the part in the BBC’s Robin Hood drama in 1984, and was soon stealing the hearts of besotted teens who covered their bedroom walls with his posters. But at the end of the second series, he shockingly quit to play D’Artagnan in a Broadway revival of The Three Musketeers before joining Dynasty.
Sir Sean Connery’s son, Jason Connery, took on the Robin mantle but the series didn’t last long without Michael. “Jason was put in an unfair position,” says Michael. “When you take over a role from someone already established there is a spectre of comparison. You can’t really win that one. I thought he was superb, but it was an unenviable task.”
Michael stands by his decision to hang up his bow however. “I left because I had a starring role on Broadway which has long been a dream of mine,” he explains. “I don’t have any regrets. And Dynasty was very well regarded.”
Michael in Emmerdale back in 2016 (ITV)After being written out of Dynasty, Michael endured many ups and downs in his career. In 1999 he won the lead role as Phileas Fogg in a big-budget US remake of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. It should have propelled him to further fame and adulation but he admits - with admirable candour - it had the exact opposite effect.
”We filmed in Montreal, and it was incredible massive big-budget production, but I remember coming back [to the UK] from that, and I just couldn’t get arrested!,” he says. “The irony - from being so important to being supremely unimportant.... but that’s the capricious nature of the industry.“
It’s not like Michael’s had much chance to rest though. Over his 40-year-plus career, he has worked solidly in theatre and musicals and is currently hoofing on 42nd Street as part of a nationwide tour.
The role forced Michael to get a haircut - as he’d grown his hair long during Covid....just like in his Robin days.MasterChef viewers will still get to see him sporting a ponytail again however, as it was filmed before he had the chop.
As for his talents when it comes to chopping ingredients, Michael can’t reveal too much about his skills as hed has to keep the outcome a surprise. But even if his former onscreen daughter Amy - sister of Girls Aloud’s Kimberley Walsh - can outdo him in the kitchen, Michael won’t mind.
Just getting to work together again is worth enduring every moment of Gregg Wallace and John Torode’s critiques.
Michael, who has a son and a daughter with his first wife Karen Landau, says: “I have really enjoyed the process, and it’s been brilliant to do it alongside Amy. I feel paternal towards her. I treat her no differently to my own daughter.”
Whatever the judges say, the person he most wants to impress is second wife, actress Josefina Gabrielle. “I’m a decent home cook,” he says. “I do a lot of simple food like a chicken casserole. And we’ll watch Saturday Kitchen, and my wife, Josefina, will say ‘Why don’t you try cooking that tonight?’ Sometimes it works, and sometimes it is a disaster! She gave me seven out of ten for cooking before the show. I’m hoping she’ll rate me higher now.”
Celebrity MasterChef is on BBC One Tuesday and Wednesday at 9pm, and Friday.
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