Michael Airington

Speaking Fee: $8,000-$10,000

As a child Michael Airington opened a fortune cookie and read the following fortune: "Your talents will be discovered and suitably rewarded." Truer words were never written. In a life that has been filled with enough ups and downs to be a script for an episode of "True Hollywood Mysteries," Michael Airington has come to embody the adage NEVER GIVE UP!

Michael Airington was born in Annapolis, Maryland. His mother died at five years old; the day after her funeral, his father abandoned him, leaving him standing in an empty living room in what had been his only home with two words: Good bye.

Raised by his maternal grand-mother in Virginia Beach, "on the wrong side of tracks," Airington started performing at the age of six. But found that his earliest gift was impersonating famous TV personalities, including actor Paul Lynde.

"Growing up, I was the weakling. I found out I had this uncanny ability to do the voice of TV stars and it made people laugh. I used the voices to keep from getting beaten up and.because I always said I was going to be famous."

THE SHOW (YOU) MUST GO ON
Most people never recover from the kind of hurt and abandonment that Michael Airington experienced as a mere child. Perhaps he hasn't either, but he has a ferocious tenacity that proves that no matter what life throws at you: NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER!!

Airington started his career at age fourteen. Calling in to a local radio station, he won a chance to be the opening act for country superstar Mel Tillis, doing his impersonations and jokes he culled from library books. Tillis was so impressed with him; he took him on the road, and also helped get into the supper club circuit where he worked with the likes of Rosemary Clooney. He was playing Las Vegas with Tillis, Wayne Newton and Dottie West before he graduated high school.

He went to Hollywood, landed small roles on top sitcoms like "Archie Bunker's Place", "One Day at a Time" and "The Jeffersons" and also started producing early Reality TV ("Emergency Call" and "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol"). B-list fame and money allowed him to buy his grandmother a real home before she died. It also provided him with the means to begin a cocaine habit that almost ended his life. Highs and lows from this period include being at Elizabeth Taylor's 60th birthday party and having Nell Carter chase him out of the home they shared with a butcher knife. He ended up in a rehab unit in Nashville in 1991, after a suicide attempt.

Working for STAR 106 in Nashville after rehab, Airington's morning show rose in the ratings because he used his tried and true talent of imitating voices. He created a character, Ester Goldberg, as his 70-something year old secretary with whom he constantly bickered on the air. She was an instant success; she was so much a success that the radio station fired Michael and kept Ester.making him sign a release to never reveal that Ester Goldberg was not a real person. When Clear Channel bought the station four years later, Airington/Goldberg was fired again. He moved to Washington, D.C. and developed "The Big, Swanky After Dinner Show with Ester Goldberg" at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. As Ester Goldberg, he was such a success that December 2, 2003 was proclaimed Ester Goldberg Day in Washington, D.C.

Not wanting to "spend the rest of his life in a dress," Airington sold everything and moved to Los Angeles to write, star and co-produce a one play based on one of his longtime character imitations, Paul Lynde. Artistic differences crippled the project and, nearly strapped of cash, Airington, by chance, bid on a box of Paul Lynde's music on e-Bay. Spending his last $100, he purchased the dead actor's musical charts and set out to recreate Lynde's own one-man nightclub act. "An Evening with Paul Lynde" played some Los Angeles clubs and garnered attention from both Lynde former co-stars and even theatrical luminaries like Neil Simon.

IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT produced a TV/DVD special of the show, which was never aired because of licensing agreement disputes. Again strapped for cash, Airington signed a contract with the show's producer not realizing he had unknowingly given away his rights to perform the show he created.

Ester Goldberg came, once again, to Michael's rescue. He began developing another show around her and creating an internet following for the character. Her fame as the "international glamorpuss of all media" has gotten Airington development deals with NEWLINE Television and appearances on "the New GONG Show" as well as Ester's own blogtalk radio shows.

Airington's career keeps rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Airington's life IS his message: NEVER GIVE UP.NEVER!! You can begin again at any age. His life has been a rollercoaster that would leave most people institutionalized or suicidal or catatonic. Sure, Airington has his bad days, still. But when you consider his tragic childhood and multiple losses and the fact that he is still "in the game" you have to hand it to the man... he truly believes (and lives) "THE SHOW (YOU) MUST GO ON!"