Paul and Karen resided in San Pedro, California, but were visiting family in nearby Spring City over Christmas break 1960 when Michael was born.

[2] His grandfather was an administrator at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City[3] He has two siblings: sister Theresa and brother Todd,[2] who starred in The Blue Bird with Elizabeth Taylor.

Todd would later appear in a Brady Bunch episode that served as the pilot for a spin-off series, Kelly's Kids, about a husband and wife with three boys: one white, one black, and one Asian.

By age nine, he had appeared in numerous television commercials for such products as toys, Cheerios cereal, and Band-Aid bandages.

In 1975, he made a guest appearance on the 1970s TV show The Secrets of Isis with fellow child actors Tommy Norden and Buddy Foster.

In 1976, he was uninterested in participating in The Brady Bunch Hour, so he asked for double the offered salary in hopes his role would be recast.

[11][12] During the Brady Bunch years, he also attended Hollywood Professional School alongside his TV siblings Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight and Susan Olsen.

"[18] On November 9, 1997, shortly after 7:30 p.m., after leaving the set of the TV series Promised Land in St. George, Utah, where he worked as first assistant cameraman, Lookinland was driving in his 1990 Ford Bronco on Utah State Route 18, 35 miles north of St. George, when he looked down to adjust the radio as he was approaching a curve and drifted onto the left shoulder.

After being treated for minor injuries at Dixie Regional Medical Center, he was booked into Washington County Jail, but released on a $1,550 bail.