Category Archives: unsung actors

TV crush: Sherry Jackson

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sherry jackson star trek

Once you’d seen Sherry Jackson’s appearance on an episode of the original “Star Trek” series, chances are you never forgot her.

As Andrea, a startlingly human android in the 1966 episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of,” Jackson single-handedly sparked puberty for a few million young boys.

In that crazy criss-cross jumpsuit, Jackson posed a special kind of peril for Capt. Kirk. Seriously, how could he keep his mind on the problem at hand – controlling a planet-bound android inventor and his huge killer robot (played by Ted Cassidy of “The Addams Family”) when Jackson was there, looking … really not at all robotic?

sherry jackson and ted cassidy

Jackson, who is now 70 (!), was a regular on 1950s TV in “The Danny Thomas Show.” By the 1960s she was all grown up, a point driven home by her “Star Trek” appearance and a series of movies she made in the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, Jackson is immortalized not only on home video and online but through a website, sherryjackson.net, that offers up not only video clips but autographed photos.

Here’s to the lovely Ms. Jackson.

 

Unsung actors: Victor Buono

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We come to praise King Tut, not to bury him.

Likewise, Count Manzeppi.

If you’re hep to the character actors we loved to watch on TV in the 1960s, you know I’m talking about Victor Buono, who received an Oscar nomination for “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” in 1962 but is best remembered among some of us for his TV roles.

In “Batman,” he played a mild-mannered professor who, upon getting hit on the head, became the Egyptian-themed crime boss King Tut. Every guest-starring turn ended up with King Tut getting hit on the head again and reverting to his kindly professor persona.

And on “Wild Wild West,” he was the aforementioned count, foil to Secret Service agents Jim West and Artie Gordon.

Buono had a second act, of sorts, in the 1970s as a talk show guest, usually on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Buono was a witty fellow and often read his poetry while on the Carson show.

Here, from online sources, is his magnum opus, “The Fat Man’s Prayer.”

I think that I shall never see… my feet.

I think it only proper to end this portion of our discussion with a prayer.

Lord, my soul is ripped with riot,

Incited by my wicked diet.

We are what we eat, said a wise old man,

And Lord, if that’s true, I’m a garbage can!

I want to rise on Judgment Day, that’s plain,

But at my present weight, I’ll need a crane!

 

So grant me strength that I may not fall

Into the clutches of cholesterol.

May my flesh with carrot curls be sated

That my soul may be polyunsaturated.

And show me the light that I may bear witness

To the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

 

At oleomargarine I’ll never mutter,

For the road to hell is spread with butter.

And cake is cursed, and cream is awful,

And Satan is hiding in every waffle.

Mephistopheles lurks in provolone,

The devil is in each slice of bologna,

Beelzebub is a chocolate drop,

And Lucifer is a lollipop!

 

Give me this day my daily slice –

But cut it thin and toast it twice.

I beg upon my dimpled knees,

Deliver me from Jujubees.

And my when days of trial are done

And my war with malted milks is won,

Let me stand with the saints in heaven

In a shining robe – Size 37!

 

I can do it, Lord, if you’ll show to me

The virtues of lettuce and celery.

If you’ll teach me the evils of mayonnaise,

The sinfulness of hollandaise

And pasta a la milanese

And potatoes a la lyonaise

And crisp fried chicken from the south!

Lord, if you love me, SHUT MY MOUTH!

 

Buono, who cut a hefty figure, died of a heart attack in 1982. Luckily we can remember him from his movie and TV roles and his funny and good-natured poetry.

 

Unsung actors: Roger C. Carmel

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He’s one of those “Hey, I remember that guy!” actors. Roger C. Carmel was featured in many, many TV series in the 1960s and 1970s. According to his IMDB page, he guest-starred in everything from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to “The Munsters” to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Hogan’s Heroes” to “Batman” playing “guest villain” Colonel Gumm.

But Carmel, who died at age 54 in 1986, was best known for two roles. He co-starred in “The Mothers-In-Law,” a 1960s sitcom starring Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden and produced by Desi Arnaz, and he guest-starred in two episodes of the original “Star Trek” series.

Carmel played Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a galactic hustler and con man who shows up in the first season episode “Mudd’s Women,” a fairly straight story about transporting what are, in effect, mail-order brides. But he is probably best remembered for reprising the Mudd role in “I, Mudd,” a second-season episode that finds the Enterprise crew arriving on a remote planet (is there any other kind?) where Mudd is the ruler (and prisoner) of a race of androids.

In the second episode, the tone is much lighter and Carmel plays Mudd with his trademark flamboyance. The effect was appropriate for a returning and not-very-threatening villain.

Carmel provided the voice for Mudd in an episode of the 1970s animated “Star Trek” series. There’s an online reference to plans for him to play the role once more in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” in the first-season episode “The Neutral Zone,” in which three people from the past are revived from suspended animation. It’s a neat Hollywood tale and maybe it’s even accurate.

Carmel, who provided voices for a number of animated TV series in his final years, passed away before he had a third chance to meet the Enterprise crew.

RIP Michael Clarke Duncan

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Here’s some sad news as reported by The Associated Press: Actor Michael Clarke Duncan has passed away at 54.

Duncan was probably best known for his role in “The Green Mile,” but I always think of him as Wilson Fisk, the Marvel comics crime boss known as Kingpin, in the Ben Affleck “Daredevil” movie.

Duncan also provided the voice of Kilowog in the “Green Lantern” movie.

Duncan, who some reports pegged as six-five and 300 pounds, had been in a Los Angeles hospital since a July heart attack.

There were a number of … off … elements about the “Daredevil” movie, although I think it gets more right than it gets wrong.

But one of the things that it got right was casting Duncan as Kingpin. It was a controversial move considering that Duncan was black and Fisk/Kingpin had always been portrayed as white in the comics.

This wasn’t a case of the character being changed in latter-day comics, as Marvel has gradually morphed Nick Fury into the image of Samuel L. Jackson, first in its Ultimates line of comics and now in the everyday Marvel world, where the original Fury’s son, who is black, has taken the name Nick Fury Jr.

At the time of the “Daredevil” casting, some people online complained that Duncan shouldn’t have been cast. Kingpin, who is also a Spider-Man enemy, shouldn’t be black, they said.

But there’s no reason besides the way the character has been drawn to rule out the color-blind casting.

And Duncan himself was good in the role of the dapper NYC gang boss.

Interestingly, we’ll see Laurence Fishburne as Perry White in next year’s Superman saga “Man of Steel.” There hasn’t been a lot of controversy about it and it’s possible that Duncan’s casting can be credited with paving the way.

 

 

 

Unsung actors: Jonathan Banks

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Who’s badder than Jonathan Banks? Nobody.

He’s one of the coolest yet most unsung actors in Hollywood.

Banks is enjoying a little limelight in a recurring role in the hit series “Breaking Bad” these days, but for years he was best known as the creepy henchman of the bad guy … or, infrequently, the offbeat good guy.

Amazingly, Banks’ TV resume goes back to the mid 1970s and appearances on everything from “Barnaby Jones” to “The Waltons” to “Little House on the Prairie!” In the latter, according to IMBD, he played Jed in a 1980 episode.

His career in movies really took off in 1982, however, with his role as a doomed cop in “48 Hours.” He’s a cohort of Nick Nolte’s cop character who gets killed off early.

Two years later, Banks played what I think of as his best henchman role in “Beverly Hills Cop.” He’s the guy who kills Eddie Murphy’s friend at the beginning of the movie and he’s the guy who gets tossed into a buffet table at a tony private club.

Banks brought a dead-eyed menace to the role that sticks with me 30 years later.

For four years beginning in 1987, Banks had his best TV role (sorry, but I haven’t seen him in “Breaking Bad” yet) as federal agent Frank McPike in “Wiseguy.” As McPike, Banks was gruff and no-nonsense as the “handler” for Ken Wahl’s Vinnie Terranova, a federal agent who goes deep undercover in criminal organizations.

Banks’ McPike is the guy who, with more than a little attitude, pulled Terranova’s butt out of the fire during the run of the series. When Wahl left the show, McPike shepherded his replacement.

Here’s to Jonathan Banks, tough guy first class.

RIP William Windom of ‘Star Trek’

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One obituary I saw today for William Windom referred to the actor, who died at age 88, as a “comedic actor,” and there’s something to that, of course.

But for me and many others in geek culture, William Windom will always and forever be Commodore Matt Decker from the classic “Star Trek” original series episode “The Doomsday Machine.”

Windom played Decker, a friend of William Shatner’s Jim Kirk and captain of the Federation starship Constellation. In this second-season episode, the Enterprise finds the wreckage of the Constellation floating in space as well as its distraught captain.

The Constellation has been targeted by a mile-long planet killing robot ship, a conical structure that fires energy blasts and absorbs matter as food. Think of it as a less chatty version of Galactus.

Windom is by turns weepy, hysterical, sneaky and imperious as the captain who will use any tool at his disposal – including the Enterprise, liberated from Kirk and Spock – to kill the Doomsday Machine.

Windom was among the strongest guest-stars the original series ever had. Sure, he had his moments that were a bit … overplayed … but most of his performance is subtle and heartbreaking.

“The Doomsday Machine” was written by science fiction author Norman Spinrad. It has one of the great “Star Trek” climaxes as Kirk tries to fly the battered Constellation down the throat of the planet killer.

Windom’s career ranged from “The Twilight Zone” to “Night Gallery” to “Murder, She Wrote,” and was one of the most dependable character actors on TV for a couple of decades.

Here’s to Windom, one of our favorites.

 

RIP Victor Spinetti

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A moment of silence is in order for Victor Spinetti, a wonderful character actor who died Tuesday in London at age 82.

Spinetti was in a couple dozen movies and won a Tony Award for his stage work, but the longtime British character actor was best known for his work in three movies featuring The Beatles.

He played the TV director driven to distraction by the boys from Liverpool in “A Hard Day’s Night.”

And he was the crazed scientist in “Help!”

Spinetti also appeared in “Magical Mystery Tour.”

He was partnered with fellow Brit Roy Kinnear in the Beatles films and also, in the 1980s, a music video for the Genesis spin-off band Mike and the Mechanics song “All I Need is a Miracle.”

Spinetti’s obits recall his recounting why he so often appeared in Beatles films. Spinetti said that George Harrison told him that if didn’t appear in their films, his “mum” wouldn’t go see them.

 

 

Unsung actors: RIP Richard Lynch

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Richard Lynch is another of those Hollywood actors whose name you might not recognize. But once you see his face, you think, “Yeah! I know that guy!”

With Lynch, who died this week at his home in Palm Springs, California, there was another reason he was so memorable.

Some of the obits for Lynch, who was 76, note his scarred face. Some attribute it to injuries he suffered in an accident in the 1960s.

Whatever the cause of Lynch’s unusual looks, he used those, his Draco Malfoy-blond hair and his distinctive voice – a mixture of distinctive and gravelly – to make an impression on a generation of movie and TV fans.

For me, Lynch was best known for playing a vampire reborn in modern-day in the 1979 TV thriller “Vampire.” I didn’t know until I read his obits that the TV movie, which was made on the cheap but had an impressive cast and some nice visuals, was a pilot for a TV series. It would have been cool to see Lynch menacing the show’s heroes each week.

Lynch was also familiar to geeks for his role as the villain in the low-budget sword-and-sorcery flick “The Sword and the Sorcerer,” released in 1982.

He had an impressive TV resume that included guest appearances on shows ranging from “The Streets of San Francisco” to “The Bionic Woman” to “Starsky and Hutch” to “Galactica 1980” to “The Fall Guy.”

More recently he starred in a lot of low-budget horror films and appeared in the Rob Zombie “Halloween” remake.

Richard Lynch might not get included in the “In Memoriam” video shown at next year’s Academy Awards. But he’s the kind of memorable character actor that the movie and TV industry is built on.

‘Incredibly Strange Creatures,’ great memories

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My companion, who is now long gone but shall remain nameless anyway, was itching to hit a zombie in the head with a baseball bat.

“If somebody comes at me, they’re gonna get it,” he said, showing me the baseball bat that was well-hidden under some blankets.

I don’t remember the year, but it must have been the late 1960s or early 1970s. The occasion was the re-release of “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.”

If you don’t remember this movie milestone, I’ll refresh your memory.

Ray Dennis Steckler was a maker of ultra-low-budget movies in the 1960s. He also acted in some of his movies, under the stage name Cash Flagg, probably because he could afford his salary.

In 1964, Steckler directed “Incredibly Strange Creatures,” which was released by Fairway International Pictures. Fairway released a handful of movies in the 1960s, including this and director Arch Hall’s “Eegah,” in which teenagers encountered a caveman. Of course. It was the 1960s and Hollywood had discovered what a potent box-office force teenagers could be. So teenagers were encountering everything from Frankenstein to giants to … well, you name it.

Fairway’s best-known movie was undoubtedly “Incredibly Strange Creatures,” in which teenagers encountered … not a caveman, but zombies at a carnival.

Stecker — er, Flagg — and other patrons of the carnival are hypnotized by a fortune teller and turned into crazed killers. For good measure, the fortune teller splashes acid on her unwilling slaves, giving them disfigured faces to match their murderous instincts.

By the end of the movie, the … well, sort of strange creatures had broken out of their cages and taken vengeance on their carnival captors.

That’s where my companion’s baseball bat came in.

At some point during the surprisingly durable theatrical lifespan of the movie, either during its original release or its subsequent re-release as “Teenage Psycho Meets Blood Mary,” Fairway or someone had the ingenious idea of selling the picture by offering something that TV couldn’t compete with.

Not 3-D. Not Smell-O-Vision.

Real life zombies, running loose in the theater (or more likely, considering the low-budget nature of the movie) the drive-in.

Or, as the ads put it:

“Not for sissies! Don’t come if you’re chicken!”

“Not 3-D but real FLESH and BLOOD monsters ALIVE! in the audience.”

“NO ONE WILL BE SAFE! THEY MIGHT GET YOU!”

“We dare you to remain seated when monsters invade audience!”

In theaters where the movie played, the management made its ushers wear cheap monster masks and, in the scene when the monsters rebelled and broke loose on screen, the hapless theater employees would run up and down the aisles, screaming and frightening moviegoers.

Except for my companion, who had made up his mind to brain one of the zombies if this outbreak occurred.

Really, he understood that “real zombies” — stop and think about that phrase for a moment — would not be rampaging through the aisles of the drive-in.

But just in case …

Anyway, my memory of the movie is fairly dim all these years later. But my memory of that baseball bat and the threat of violence in the aisles remains vivid.

No, nobody got hit with a baseball bat that night. Zombies — in this case undoubtedly the teenage employees of the drive-in — did rampage, but none got close enough to us to warrant a good beating.

Thank goodness. Beating up teenage zombies with a baseball bat during a movie that’s been acclaimed as one of the worst of all time isn’t something you want on your record.

 

My movie role: Thug in a Batman fight

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Did I ever tell you about the time I got beat up by Batman and Robin in a movie?

It was about 30 years ago and my circle of geek friends included Mark Racop, a Ball State University student from Logansport, Indiana, who was a fan of all things Batman. Racop did more with his fandom, however, than read comic books or sit around watching reruns of the 1960s “Batman” TV series, however.

Racop made Batman movies. And a Batcave. And, most impressive of all, Batmobiles.

My friends and I had flirted with movie-making a few times, writing and shooting a short thriller masterminded by my pal Brian McFadden. But Mark was serious as a heart attack about his desire to make Batman movies.

Now mind you this was before the 1989 Tim Burton “Batman” movie starring Michael Keaton. Nobody had put Batman on film since the 1960s and then it was the campy “Blam!” “Kee-runch” Batman.

Mark enlisted a bunch of us to appear in “Eyes of the Cat,” a 45-minute Batman movie featuring himself as Batman — in costume quite like Adam West’s outfit from the TV series — and various other friends as Robin, Catwoman and assorted henchmen.

That’s where I came in.

Because Racop shot his movie over the course of months (maybe years), I was only in a few moments of the movie. I played Figgy Pudding, a thug rousted and roughed up by Batman and Robin. My friend Brian played Harry Beefmelons.

We spent a couple of days roughing each other up, throwing punches and working out our own fight choreography. It was a blast.

Mark went on to a number of enterprises, including his latest. His company, Fiberglass Freaks, is officially licensed by Warner Bros. and DC Comics to make and sell replicas of the 1960s Batmobile.

The Batmobile he had back in the day was one that he had cobbled together from a 1974 Monte Carlo and it was cool for a fan effort. The vehicles he makes today are gorgeous.

You can check out a webpage about “Eyes of the Cat” here. Sorry, no pics of me as Figgy Pudding.

And you can check out Mark’s custom superhero vehicle website here.

If you buy a Batmobile and decide to make a movie, I’d love to have a part. Maybe a speaking role this time.