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Michael (March 17, 1973, Cameroon – April 19, 2000) was the first male 'talking' gorilla. He had a working vocabulary of over 600 signs in American Sign Language, taught to him by Koko, a female gorilla; Dr. Francine Patterson (to whom the gorillas referred using the sign "penny"); and other staff of Stanford University. Michael, an orphan, spent most of his life in Woodside, California, where he became a local celebrity and well-known painter, creating vividly colourful abstract works.