Michael Dante (born Ralph Vitti, September 2, 1931) is an American actor and former professional minor league baseball player.

He changed his name at the urging of studio boss Jack L. Warner, who thought "Vitti" would not fit well on theater marquees.

[2] He spent seven years in supporting roles under contract to three major studios at once: MGM, Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox.

[2] Other film credits include Fort Dobbs (1958), Kid Galahad (1962), Operation Bikini (1963), The Naked Kiss (1964), Apache Rifles (1964), Harlow (1965), Arizona Raiders (1965), Willard (1971), That's the Way of the World (1975), The Farmer (1977), Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident (1978), Beyond Evil (1980), Return from the River Kwai (1989), and Cage (1989).

He appeared on Star Trek television series in the role of "Maab" in the 1967 episode, "Friday's Child" alongside Julie Newmar.

[2] In 1969, he played Clay Squires, a bitter young half-breed man, in the episode "Long Night at Fort Lonely" on the syndicated Death Valley Days, with Robert Taylor (actor) as Ben Cotterman and June Dayton as Cotterman's wife, Rachel[3] and in 1972 he played a harried TV commercial director in My Three Sons.

Wayne had seen Dante in Winterhawk and asked him to co-host a charity event in Newport Beach, California.