Chicago native Mike Cleary is best-known to Bay Area radio listeners for the fifteen years he spent paired with Frank Dill, hosting the morning show on KNBR. “Frank and Mike” were teamed up in 1979 and held forth together until Dill’s 1994 retirement.
Cleary arrived in San Francisco in 1966, after spending time at radio stations in Petaluma, Honolulu, Sacramento and San Diego. Prior to his radio career, Cleary served in the US Army as a Russian translator.
His Bay Area debut was on KYA, where he did middays. There would be a brief stop at KCBS, where Cleary had an afternoon interview program in the months before the switch to the all-news format. Cleary also showed up on television, playing “Sergeant Sacto” on KBHK-TV’s kiddie show Captain San Francisco.
In 1970, Cleary was hired to host middays on KNBR. Once teamed with Dill in 1979, Cleary deployed a memorable series of characters, such as newsman O’Bradley O’Bradley (“digging down deep to get to the bottom to stay on top!”) for scripted bits. Dill’s job would be to read the lines with a straight face and he seldom succeeded.
After his KNBR years, Cleary was heard on KABL and Monterey’s KIDD. He co-hosted and produced a syndicated radio show called “The Food and Travel Enthusiasts.”
In his post-broadcasting years, Cleary turned to writing, authoring a series of novels.
ADDITIONAL EXHIBITS:
KNBR/68: The NBC Years Collection
Audio interview: Frank Dill and Mike Cleary (recorded 2011)