Michael Tolan Mary's night-school teacher & boyfriend. He also made guest appearances on such television series as "Mannix", "Kojak", "Nichols", "The Outer Limits", "McMillan and Wife", and "Law & Order". His last known television appearance was on an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" in 1994. Tolan appeared in the Bob Fosse film "All That Jazz" (1979) as lead character Joe Gideon's cardiologist, Dr. Ballinger. Tolan also helped found the American Place Theatre, of which he wrote: “We wanted to attract some of the writers who wrote fine, intelligent, deep material about American life, and see if we could interest them in writing
Bob Fosse for themselves. According to Michael Joosten, Fosse once said: "The time to sing is when your emotional level is too high to just speak anymore, and the time to dance is when your emotions are just too strong to only sing about how you 'feel.'" He also took influence from Jerome Robbins. "New Girl in Town" gave Fosse the inspiration to direct and choreograph his next piece because of the conflict of interest within the collaborators. During that piece, "Redhead", Fosse utilized one of the first ballet sequences in a show that contained five different styles of dance; Fosse's jazz,