[1] Dunn had medical dwarfism, a result of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia (SED, subtype unknown), a genetic defect of cartilage production caused by a mutation in the COL2A1 (type II collagen) gene.

This disorder, classified as a skeletal dysplasia, causes distorted development of the limbs, spine, and ribcage and leads to early, widespread osteoarthritis and constricted lung growth.

[2] Dunn started reading at age three, was champion of the 1947 Detroit News Spelling Bee (representing Wallaceville School in Wayne County), and showed early skill at the piano.

He enjoyed singing from childhood, loved to draw an impromptu audience (even while waiting for a bus), and developed a pleasing lyric baritone and superb sight-reading skills.

However, according to his Columbia Studios press kit biography, his studies were interrupted when he was knocked down a flight of stairs during a "student rush", which resulted in a three-month hospital stay.

Softness ran a campus-wide advertising campaign called "Wheels for Gary," which brought in enough money from student donations to buy a used 1951 Austin outfitted with hand controls, so that Dunn could get around independently.

Dunn was later quoted in the New York Post explaining that he had wanted to be of service, since he was unfit for the military: "Everyone my age was going to Korea and I had this feeling that singing wasn't exactly doing my part.

"[5] However, monastery records entered by the Master of Novices show that the physical demands of monastic life in a huge, 19th-century building with no elevator proved too strenuous.

Eventually, on the advice of fellow actor Roddy McDowall, the pair started a nightclub act of songs mixed with conversational patter, titled "Michael Dunn and Phoebe".

[6][7][10] Dunn was probably best known for his recurring role on that series as Dr. Miguelito Loveless, a mad scientist who devised passionately perverse schemes and gadgetry to ensnare Secret Service agents James West and Artemus Gordon (Robert Conrad and Ross Martin).

According to Dorin, Dunn saved her from drowning during filming of the episode "The Night of the Murderous Spring", plunging underwater to tear her free, when her costume became entangled in machinery used to sink a boat on the set.

Early in the 1965-66 television season Dunn was seen in the pilot episode of the spy spoof Get Smart, where he showed his skill with comic farce as the well-heeled gangster Mr. Big, leader of international crime organization K.A.O.S.

Later that year he made his first appearance as Dr. Loveless in "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth" (October 1, 1965), and portrayed a villain who kidnaps an American cryptographer and offers him to the highest bidder in "The Prisoners of Mr.

Dunn received an Oscar nomination and the Laurel Award as the best supporting actor for his role as the cynical Karl Glocken in 1965's Ship of Fools, directed by Stanley Kramer).

Author Günter Grass had already asked him to play in a film adaptation of his novel The Tin Drum, a role that ultimately went to the young David Bennent after Dunn's death.

Various accounts describe him as an aviator, skydiver, judo master, football player, and concert pianist, despite clear evidence on film of a severe, waddling limp, permanently flexed limbs, and gnarled fingers.

"[3][6] Working in New York, eschewing public transportation, Dunn reportedly accrued masses of parking tickets, as disabled drivers had no special privileges.

An autopsy was performed on August 31, 1973, by Donald Teare at St George's Hospital, London, who noted: "The right side of the heart was widely dilated and hypertrophied to twice its normal thickness.

[1] Allegations of chronic alcoholism are unsubstantiated by the autopsy report, which notes only venous congestion of the liver, presumably secondary to Dunn's right-heart failure, without cirrhosis, and without inflammation of the stomach lining or pancreas.

Another would be intoxication after drinking even small amounts of alcohol, as well as a toxic reaction to the prescribed drugs—either of which could also induce altered mental status (such as disorientation, delusions, faulty memory).