Here is our long awaited introduction of Michael Steadman, Thirtysomething’s capitalist (with a heart) hero. Michael is the rock of the gang, and first cousin to backwards suspender-wearing fashionista Melissa Steadman. Michael is the guy you call at 4 am when you are in trouble (a la Judd Nelson’s character in St. Elmo’s Fire). Michael still holds onto the memories of his former bohemian aspirations and can be maddeningly earnest. Throughout the course of the show, we travel with Michael through major life changing events: the death of his father, starting a small advertising agency called the Michael and Elliot Company (doomed for failure with this ridiculous moniker yet the writers deliver this name without any hint of cynicism), the birth of his son and the miscarriage of another. Although not pictured here, Michael is obsessed with wearing suspenders. He nearly always wears sneakers or other rubber soled shoes with all his suits. That is, until his big promotion to creative director at the Drentel Advertising Agency, the biggest agency in Philadelphia. After that it’s always loafers, with or without tassels. He has a propensity for tweed suits and ties and sweaters with diamonds emblazoned on them. As Michael, Ken Olin seems to be carrying the weight of both the show and the world on his shoulders. I think this heaviness is the truest manifestation of Michael’s Jewishness, that and that his father worked in the schmatte business.
