Michele Carey Strebel, nee Henson

Michele arrived in the world beautiful, blue-eyed, happy, and curious. Her joyous parents were Thelma, the exhausted pianist, and Stan, the tough wrestling coach. Janine’s carefree life as an only child ended abruptly. At all of sixteen months of age she began to become responsible to help watch over her precocious baby sister. George and Stan joined the family later. “For some reason,” Michele later recalled, “Stan was always given to Janine to babysit, and I got George.” Her father, the assistant wrestling coach at the Naval Academy, volunteered for active duty as a line officer during the war. After VJ Day he enrolled in medical school at the University of Maryland. Subsequently specializing in surgery at the Mayo Clinic, he finally settled in Fort Collins to practice. So Michele grew up in Maryland, Oklahoma (with Mom and the grandparents while Dad was overseas), Minnesota, and Colorado. She loved playing, day-dreaming, ice-skating, and hanging out with her dog, Champ. As a teenager in Colorado her father bought her a horse which to most seemed wild, and unbroken. Michele rode that horse! Perhaps no one else could have.

Like her mother and Janine, Michele studied the piano from childhood. On two occasions, Janine and Michele performed a piano duo on live television in Minneapolis. In the summer of 1955, at age thirteen, Michele entered a national piano competition in Chicago. Performing the technically demanding Paganini Variations, and demonstrating poise and virtuosity beyond her years, she won 1st place and received the gold medal! The little thirteen-year-old girl, looking so small, followed with an encore, outdoors, in the middle of Soldier Field! It was truly an inspiring sight and a wonderful performance, which brought down the house.

By about the age of seventeen or eighteen, Michele had blossomed into a lovely and captivating young woman. Modeling work that began in Denver quickly led to Los Angeles, and then Hollywood took notice. Her acting career included starring roles in the films El Dorado, Live a Little, Love a Little, The Sweet Ride, and In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro. Co-starring with Kent Lane, Michele made the critically-acclaimed Hall Bartlett film, Changes. She appeared in more than two dozen television shows, including The Wild Wild West, Love, American Style, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., It Takes a Thief, The F.B.I., Starsky and Hutch, Alias Smith and Jones, Gunsmoke, and The Fall Guy. She also did “voice over” work on friend Wolfman Jack’s nationally syndicated radio program, and as the sultry, female computer voice in A Man Called Sloane. Michele had a down to earth attitude toward work: “I was told to be ready at 4:00 A.M. for the limo ride to the studio for make-up. I was ready, and I knew my lines.” Until her death she received fan mail from all over the world.

After her acting career Michele found continued success “flipping” houses, mostly in Beverly Hills Post Office (BHPO), the Hollywood Hills, and Malibu. She would locate and purchase a somewhat rundown property. Working with partner and master cabinet maker Deryl L. Nation, old carpets were replaced, the home was repainted, and Deryl fashioned superb, new kitchen cabinets. Finally, Michele’s eclectic furnishings were moved in, and suddenly the home was the most desirable property in the neighborhood.

Preceded in death by husband Fred G. Strebel, son Kevin Troy Schwanke, and parents Dr. & Mrs. Stanley W. Henson Jr., Michele is survived by her sister and two brothers, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Survivors also include longtime partner Deryl L. Nation of San Francisco, more like another brother to Michele, and her dearest friends in the world, Lynne and Jerry Ostrow of Beverly Hills.

We remember Michele for her beauty, her love of life, and her generous “can do” spirit. These are Michele’s words and her mantra from a script she once wrote: “Between the first tear and the last smile, let’s live for the time we’re alive.”