Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

[DarrenTR1970]

Any info on pricing and availability?

It's from Kino Lorber. It's out now on Blu-Ray. Cost $59.97.

 

[Forbin]

Barbary Coast basically was a thinly-disguised retread of TWWW, with Shatner doing the Artemus Gordon often-in-disguise role and Doug McClure as the James West-type leading man (only I think he was a reformed gambler and sometime con artist instead of an ex-Army officer? Something like that.)

I don't recall them going into Cash Conover's background, but he's basically the owner of the casino where Shatner's Jeff Cable has his secret quarters behind the fireplace. Cash owes Jeff for saving his life, y'see, which Jeff constantly reminds him of.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

It's from Kino Lorber. It's out now on Blu-Ray. Cost $59.97.

Just like the Coronet Blue box set I talked about a while ago.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Well, logically that's how it should work. Instead of having one impersonator who was magically expected to match everyone, the realistic thing to do would be to find someone who already resembles the subject. That was the intent in the original M:I pilot, when Landau was just a special guest star -- that Rollin was brought in specifically because of his resemblance to the dictator they needed to double. By contrast, when he had to wear a full-face mask to briefly impersonate Dan Briggs, it was visibly far less convincing, unlike the fancifully perfect masks they used later in the series.

But once they made Landau a regular, it led to the contrivance of the team repeatedly needing to impersonate people who looked like Landau, either because Landau played them or because they cast an actor who resembled him (Paul Stevens was the main one, playing three different characters that Rollin impersonated in various episodes).

I understand the value of sticking with a regular team, but sometimes I wish M:I had stuck with the original intention that the team composition would vary from week to week, tailored for each mission. Instead of one universal master of disguise, they should've saved the "disguise artist" role for a succession of featured guest stars. If nothing else, they could've avoided the unfortunate times that they put Landau or Nimoy in yellowface makeup to impersonate Asians, instead bringing in someone like James Hong or George Takei (who was an M:I guest team member once, but as a medical expert) to play the role.

I'm only a handful of episodes into Season 6, which generally gets a bad rap, but I think they may have improved upon this situation by having the disguise master (Casey) not necessarily be the person who wears the disguises. Thought it was pretty cool when they brought in a guest agent to impersonate Barney.

 

[Christopher]

I'm only a handful of episodes into Season 6, which generally gets a bad rap, but I think they may have improved upon this situation by having the disguise master (Casey) not necessarily be the person who wears the disguises.

Which, I'm sure, was largely because they didn't want to hide Lynda Day George's stunning face any more than they had to.

Although it was also because they cut the cast size along with the budget and couldn't afford to have both a master of disguise and a glamour gal, so they combined them.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I just looked up Paul Stevens to see a portrait, and sure enough he's a ringer for Martin Landau:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0828676/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1

 

[The Old Mixer]

Which, I'm sure, was largely because they didn't want to hide Lynda Day George's stunning face any more than they had to.

Although it was also because they cut the cast size along with the budget and couldn't afford to have both a master of disguise and a glamour gal, so they combined them.

And because she wasn't going to be convincing impersonating the same sorts of characters that Rollin and Paris routinely impersonated.

 

[Christopher]

And because she wasn't going to be convincing impersonating the same sorts of characters that Rollin and Paris routinely impersonated.

Casey did go undercover on a number of occasions, but usually as women who conveniently resembled her closely enough, or whose faces were sufficiently unknown to the marks, that she could impersonate them without a mask. Like I said, they just didn't want to hide her face.

 

[Forbin]

IIRC, there was a M:I episode where they had to convince the mark that an anti-aging drug worked, but later that it backfired. They had Linda Day wear an age mask, then a mask of her own face, then another age mask, in layers, at the same time. Of course it was alltogether no thicker than a whisper of latex and looked perfectly natural.

 

[Herbert]

Watching the 12 O'Clock High episode, Appointment at Liege, and it's a veritable smorgasbord of Trek guest appearances.

In addition to the regulars, Gary Lansing and Frank Overton...

We also have Gary Lockwood and Nancy Kovack

 

[The Old Mixer]

You'll see lots of Trek actors popping up in the opening credits of 12OCH. Lockwood did three appearances as two different characters, as did Lee Meriwether, one overlapping.

 

[J.T.B.]

Jill Ireland in The Valachi Papers, 1972.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Jill Ireland in The Valachi Papers, 1972.
View attachment 24625

Once they became a couple, pretty much any movie staring Charles Bronson will have Jill Ireland in it.

 

[J.T.B.]

Once they became a couple, pretty much any movie staring Charles Bronson will have Jill Ireland in it.

Yeah, I was expecting she would turn up, and she did.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Trek actors are pretty common on Mission: Impossible, but it always seems more noteworthy when one turns up as a guest agent. In "The Miracle" (Oct. 23, 1971) it's Lawrence Montaigne, who plays an agent who plays a Catholic priest. Wrong Franchise Note: Also guesting Billy Dee Williams!

 

[johnnybear]

Nathan Jung, Richard Derr in Bust Amboy, an episode of Starsky And Hutch!
JB

 

[Christopher]

Trek actors are pretty common on Mission: Impossible, but it always seems more noteworthy when one turns up as a guest agent. In "The Miracle" (Oct. 23, 1971) it's Lawrence Montaigne, who plays an agent who plays a Catholic priest.

My favorite was when Eddie Paskey was on the M:I team as an actor whose role in the mission was to be a stand-in for someone else. I choose to believe that he was playing himself.

 

[Herbert]

Once they became a couple, pretty much any movie staring Charles Bronson will have Jill Ireland in it.

Maybe they should have cast Bronson as Elias Sandoval

 

[The Old Mixer]

Not an actor appearance, but last week's 50th anniversary episode of Adam-12, "The Search," had Malloy injured off-road with a wrecked squad car after a high-speed pursuit on Griffith Park Drive. The radio was malfunctioning so that he was able to receive but not send, so he used the wires to send an SOS of static bursts. Once Reed picked this up, he narrowed down Malloy's location and condition by asking a series of questions and employing the Pike Method--one for yes, two for no.

 

[Forbin]

John Fiedler popped up again as the Chicago police mortician in the 2nd to last episode of The Night Stalker.