- Fought in the Australian army during World War II.
- Though he often played Indians in movie and TV westerns, he was in fact a Caucasian born and raised in Australia.
- He was awarded the O.A.M. (Order of Australia Medal) in the 1997 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to the performing arts as an actor, producer, and writer for the Australian Film, Radio, and Television Industries.
- Was the first actor to play James Bond's CIA counterpart, Felix Leiter, in the television adaptation of Casino Royale. In this version, however, he is renamed Clarence Leither and, since Bond and Leiter's nationalities were reversed, he was an MI6 agent instead.
- Interviewed in "It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition" by Tom Weaver (McFarland, 1996).
- Invited to join AMPAS in 1961.
- Michael Pate was in real life an expert in Old West Military procedures.
- Five times, played Indians who rescue heroes of TV westerns from painful punishments: 1) In Incident of the Power and the Plow (1959), he intervenes to keep Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood from being flogged while tied to tree trunks; 2) In Hondo and the War Cry (1967), he saves Ralph Taeger from having hot coals poured on his bare chest while lying staked out on the ground; 3) In Renegade White (1959), he saves Matt Dillon from death at the hand of white renegades; 4) In The Violators (1964), he plays the Comanche Chief Buffalo Calf, who saves Matt Dillon from being shot with a rifle at close range by Caleb Nash. He also did this in the film Hondo (1953) where he saved John Wayne from a handful of hot coals. 5) In The Rifleman: The Executioner he was an Navajo Indian tracking a man to find money from a robbery.
- Father of actor Christopher Pate.
- Son-in-law of Joe Rock and Louise Granville.
- Brother-in-law of Phillip Rock.
- Also look at Felippa Rock.
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