n.
born Oct. 25, 1921, Sinaia, Rom.
King of Romania.
After his father, the future king Carol II , had been excluded from the royal succession (1926), Michael was proclaimed king under a three-member regency. Carol reclaimed the throne in 1930, and Michael was reduced to crown prince. With Carol's abdication in 1940, Michael again became king but was in effect a prisoner of the military dictator Ion Antonescu . In 1944 he helped lead the coup that overthrew the military regime and severed Romania's ties with the Axis powers. He strongly opposed the communists' subsequent rise to power, but was forced to abdicate in 1947. He went into exile in Switzerland and became an executive with a U.S. brokerage firm. In 1997 his Romanian citizenship was restored; he subsequently visited the country and sought the return of property holdings that were confiscated.