"Hey! I Know That Guy" Episode #1 ( of a Hopeful Series)

 Presenting Episode #1 of a series of posts I'm titling:

HEY! I know that guy!

OK, so you may not have noticed I do this frequently.  Get some inspirational idea and try to run with it.  So this may be an ongoing series (and then again it may die on the operating table) But  I am going to give it a shot.

Premise:  One of my favorite TV shows is the old 50's/60's TV show, The Twilight Zone.  The old anthology series had a strange story each week, and, since it was an anthology series, as opposed to a weekly drama, there were no recurring characters, or for that matter, recurring actors.  Admittedly, there were a smattering of actors who came back time and again for the series, but the only mainstay was the show's host, Rod Serling.

The man himself

 

Now, the headliner in these episodes was almost always a star in his or her own right. The first season alone had such luminaries as Ida Lupino,  Ed Wynn, Rod Taylor, Anne Francis and Howard Duff, just to name a few.  But each episode also had a supporting cast, some of which had not quite hit the heights they would later claim.   Many of the minor characters in these vignettes were just riding on the verge of discovery.

Of course, at least two of those  episodes had only two people on screen the entire time of the episode, and in those cases both actors were fairly well established by then: I am speaking, of course of  the third season episodes of "Two" and "A Game of Pool".  "Two" featured on Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery, and "A Game of Pool" featured only Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. So if this series goes on long enough and I choose to focus on one or both of those episodes, my choices will be limited.

 

Chuck and Liz

 

Jonny and Jack

 

So, anyway, back to the inspiration. One day, several years ago, I came home from being out carousing and turned on my TV to see what was on.  I started watching what turned out to be the Robert Redford movie Brubaker. In one scene, Redford is conversing with a character who is one of the prison trustees.  And I said "Hey! I know that guy!" But I couldn't figure out where I knew him.  Fortunately I had access to the internet by then and zipped over to my computer.  With a little effort, I found out the actor  was Matt Clark.  Still wasn't sure even with that, but a glance at IMDb told me Clark played Packy Harrison in the film In The Heat of the Night, and I immediately recalled his brief scene.

Thus, we have the inspiration for this series.  I'm going to pick one of the secondary characters from an episode of The Twilight Zone. In each post I will encapsulate the plot of the episode, as well as point out the actor and where he or she appears in the episode.  Then I will give some brief background on said actor, and highlight one (or more) of his or her memorable performances.

I hope this is enjoyable.  Don't know yet how it will all flesh out.  And I'm probably not going to stick to any predetermined sequence.  But I have decided to start at the beginning anyway.  The very first episode had only one character in it for 90% of the story.  The main character was played by Earl Holliman, a somewhat star in his own right by this time, though mostly as a supporting cast member.  For instance he was one of the astronaut crew accompanying Leslie Nielsen in the classic sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet.

 But at the very end, after the denouement, several more characters make their presence known and one these is played by James Gregory. 

 

So who is James Gregory, you might ask?Gregory was one of those actors who, even if you don't know his name, is definitely a familiar face (and voice).  Some of you may remember him best from the TV series from the late 70's - early 80's, Barney Miller.  Gregory had a recurring role as Inspector Luger.  And, although he was hidden by makeup, his voice was recognizable from Beneath the Planet of the Apes as General Ursus, one of the gorillas who sought to capture the main character in the film.

 

Interestingly, Gregory got his start in 1941 in a religious film called Journey to Jerusalem, but his acting career got put on hold (sort of) with the outbreak of WWII. Not sure what his actual duties involved during his service work, but he apparently got involved in helping make propaganda films, since he made at least one during that time. (There is a clip of him and a couple of other soldiers confronting a Communist street speaker in the film The Atomic Cafe. But try as I might I have been unable to find a title for the original film they gleaned for the clip).

After his return to civilian life, he started doing more acting work, including being the lead actor on a TV series from the 50's called The Lawless Years.  Gregory would go on to some more prominent work during this time, although he never really became a headliner.  One of the more prominent roles I remember is he was Senator Iselin, the prime target for the assassination attempt in the 60's thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

But his mainstay during his career was really with TV.  Notably he played the victim in one Columbo episode ("Short Fuse", featuring Roddy McDowall as the killer) and as a subsidiary character, the coach of a football team being run by another killer (Robert Culp) in "The Most Crucial Game", thus making him one of a handful of actors who appeared more than once on that iconic mystery series.

And, back to The Twilight Zone, he also had a meatier part as a Confederate soldier who stops to talk to a woman on her porch as the road filled with soldiers trudges by on the nearby road.  (The Passerby) 

In the first Twilight Zone episode, however,  the main focus is on a character, played by Earl Holliman, who finds himself in a town where there is no one else, although it appears at times they may have just left within the past hour or so.  Holliman's character desperately tries to figure out what is going on, as well as try to remember who he is and and how he got there in the first place.  It turns out that Holliman had been going though isolation and sensory deprivation exercises to see how they might affect potential astronauts on deep space travel.  At the end of the episode it is revealed that he has been watched by several Armed Forces  bigwigs, one of whom was a General played by Gregory.

In this episode, Gregory serves as the grounding in reality, the connection to the poor schmo who had to spend some 484 hours (that comes out to about 20 days, to give you perspective)  in this box as a guinea pig to see how long term isolation would affect his mind. The General may come off a bit uncaring, since it was his experiment, but he does show some compassion at the end.  

As mentioned earlier, Gregory's biggest bulk of acting roles occurred on the small screen.  He was really an important cast member in Barney Miller during that series' run.  He was introduced in the first season, but only had a few limited guest shots in the first couple of seasons.  He became a frequent star as the series went on , and in season 4 he was included as one of the stars of the show as the opening credits rolled.

Over the course of it's six seasons, there would be some characters that would come and go.  Notably Gregory Sierra, who many probably remember as Julio on Sanford and Son, stayed only through two seasons.  Abe Vigoda likewise left the series after a few years.  Jack Soo unfortunately passed away during the series run.  And there were a few additions that came on to compliment the cast, like Steve Landesburg, and surprisingly enough to me,  since he was such a strong presence later in the series, Ron Carey. 

The Season 4 Cast

 

With such an ensemble cast, there were often two or three stories going on in any episode, and thus not much dominant screen time for any one character.  But a highlight, for the episodes where he did appear,   was when Gregory walked into the squad room as Inspector Luger. He always came unannounced, just seemingly "happened to be in the neighborhood" kind of visit.  Of course, with Inspector Luger you never knew .  Ofttimes he was just showing up because he was a lonely man that craved attention and recognition,  Luger was guy you could get annoyed with because he was insensitive and oblivious to any one who might take offense, because he was just being genuine.  And then he could drop a bomb on you and make you feel sympathetic for his predicament. because, after all, he was a 50 something year old lifelong bachelor who almost never seemed to be able to settle down in a relationship, which might have mellowed him.

Oh sure, there was that one season when he had a fiance named Agnes (or maybe "Ag-a-nes", since that's how he pronounced it), but as wedding bells advanced he became more and more worried about the loss of independence.

By far, one of the more entertaining episodes of the series was the two-part "Quarantine" episode.  In this episode we got to see how the individual members of the squad were able to cope with being cooped up together, by force.  A prisoner was brought in who was sick and later determined to have either chicken pox or small pox.  As a result a doctor quarantines the entire precinct, and especially the squad room.  Not especially good even in the best of circumstances, but included in the mix are a gay couple who had just come to see Barney about helping them get a reprieve from one of them who was on probation.  And the unfortunate Luger who just happened to decide to visit the squad room at the wrong time.

Most of the rest of the squad room are somewhat upset, obviously, but Luger, being Luger, tries to manipulate the procedure.  And he is also not quite so accommodating to the fact that there is a gay couple in the quarantine.  

This being the 70's, the gay couple do receive some of the humorous remarks,and the gay viewing audience were not always receptive to the portrayal, but the writers did their best to be sympathetic and not condescending when presenting the characters.  There is an interesting video out there on youtube about the trials and tribulations behind the scenes.

Eventually the whole squad room finally settles down to crash on cots put up for the quarantine and Luger has to concede the couch in Barney's office to the only woman who has been quarantined with them (showing one of the rare moments when he is willing to think of others well being. 

Over the years that Gregory was in the acting business, he managed to accumulate over 200 appearances in TV and movies.  Pretty impressive by any standard.  He passed away in 2002 at the age of 90. 

Well, folks, thus ends our first entry in this venture. I had fun, so maybe it won't be the last entry...

 

Quiggy

The Big Bad Wolfe

 

In 2000, A & E Television produced a one off film The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, which starred Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin as, respectively, Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe.  

The Nero Wolfe series of novels, written by Rex Stout had been created in the 30's and were published, both as short stories in magazines (later to be collected 3 or 4 at a time in book form) and novels until the author's death in 1975.  

(Side note:  The mantle of Nero Wolfe has, in recent years, been taken up by one Robert Goldsborough, who does an admirable job of it.)

The background of Nero Wolfe over the years has been spotty, to say the least.  There were at least 4 separate radio series, (3 of which aired during the heyday of radio entertainment,  radio being the prominent format for home entertainment, pre- television), and, as near as I can tell, at least 2 attempts to try to move Nero Wolfe into the television era of entertainment (prior to the series discussed today.)

One of those, which I remembered fondly and have been lucky enough to have found on DVD featured William Conrad as Wolfe and Lee Horsley. 

Conrad, of course, will be familiar to most of you.  Not only was he the voice of Matt Dillon when Gunsmoke was a radio show (obviously if you've seen him you know why he didn't transition to that role on TV), and he played lead roles in two TV series, Cannon and Jake and the Fatman.  Lee Horsely, on the other hand, may not be all that familiar, depending on your perspective.  He did have the lead role in a Magnum, P.I. knockoff (my perspective of it anyway), Matt Houston. But other than that, he has a very slim file of appearances.

There were also a couple of attempts to bring the character to the big screen, both of which took such liberties with the character that Stout himself refused to authorize another adaptation.  (Seems like Stout had much the same opinion of these attempts as Stephen King has been known to have for film adaptations of his works.)

So back to the original premise of this post.  A very good adaptation of Stout's The Golden Spiders was produced for A & E.  Not only did they stick with the story as much as possible (which includes...spoiler alert!....the death of the kid who comes to Wolfe's door early in the story).  And, BTW, not the same with an earlier adaptation. In the 1977 TV movie that preceded the Conrad/Horsely series, the boy survives... so much for PC TV. 

Anyway, the reception to the A & E movie was such that the studio greenlighted a series.   And each one was to remain true to the original Stout vision.  The sad part is only 20 episodes were made,  But each one of those was adaptations of already published Rex Stout stories.  Unlike the multiple radio series and the 1981 TV series, the producers didn't attempt to create their own intricate mysteries for the detective.

And there was a new twist (one that I hadn't seen at any rate) on this new series.  Th episode featured a repertory (multiple actors who came back each episode playing different characters each time. There were a few recurring characters in the series, including the familiar ones such as Fritz Brenner, Wolfe's major domo and chef (always played by Colin Fox) and the irascible Inspector Cramer (always played by Bill Smitrovich). Plus frequent secondary help from independent P.I.s Saul Panzer (Conrad Dunn, Fred Durkin (Fulvio Cecere) and Orrie Cather (Trent McMullen).

Colin Fox

Bill Smitrovich

Conrad Dunn

(And, BTW, does Dunn look familiar?  He was the character "Psycho" in the Bill Murray movie "Stripes"...)

But in addition, there were multiple members of the cast who were part of the repertory who would come on in various roles as needed.  Among these were a couple of familiar people.  James Tolkan (who, if not familiar by name, is definitely familiar by face... he was Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future series of films). Tolkan is recognizable, most of the time.  It took me by surprise that it was him in one episode, however, since the character sports a shaggy toupee(?) and a big bushy mustache, but you hear his voice and think, "oh, yeah, it's him...")

 George Plimpton (probably better known as an author than as an actor, but he did have some acting credits), is also among the familiar names.

The rest of the recurring repertory were names I had never heard of prior to watching the series, and none of them appeared in ALL the episodes.  It usually depended on what characters were present in the stories. And since they were instrumental members specific to the plot of each individual episode, they were, of course, not reprising a previous role from a preceding episode.

One of the highlights when watching the opening credits, for me, was seeing that Kari Matchett was included in the cast. 

Twice she only briefly appeared, as Lily Rowan, Archie Goodwin's now and again enamorata, and was thus only briefly involved in the story.  At other times she was a significant player in the ongoing plot of the episode., and so I got to see more of her.

A complete list of the actors and actresses who appeared over the course of the series can be found here:

Nero Wolfe Characters (2001-2002)

The series was well-scripted with much attention to keeping it in line with the original stories.  The list of teleplay authors is pretty good, too. Sharon Elizabeth Doyle wrote a majority of them, and her resume is not real extensive, but she did a good job with the adaptations.  

But also included in the cast of writers was Stuart Kaminsky, whom some will remember has the writer of at least two fairly well known detective fiction series, one of which ranks among my favorites, that of Toby Peters. Peters was to put it in my own terms "detective to the stars".  Each book involved the detective working with stars of the 30's and 40's Hollywood.

And then, the final set of writers I want to highlight are Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, both of whom later wrote scrips for one of my favorite TV series, Monk. And Goldberg has even a few of the Monk novels under his name. (not to mention a few others, he is prolific...)

The A & E was far too short, however.  What could have gone on for several years only lasted two.  With a combined total of 74 stories and novels by Stout alone, that could have expanded the show at least  for another 3 or 4 years.  The biggest disappointment, for me, though was that the series did not adapt my favorite Stout book "Too Many Cooks".  (Of course, adapting that one would have necessitated that most of the female members of the repertory be sidelined, since that one consists of almost all male characters).

At any rate, having been cooped up this week, I finally got a chance to more or less binge the entire series.  It gave me a serious jonesing to see more of Timothy Hutton, whom I had forgotten was such a great actor.  I remember my first experience was seeing him in Taps  and Turk 182 in the early 80's. The last thing I remember seeing him in was as the main character in the adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Half. 

Primarily I remember Turk 182 as it was a big influence on me in my youth.  I still remember it some 40 years later, even though I only saw it that one time in the theater.  Currently trying to track down a copy for a review, but might have to break down and buy it retail, since I can't find it in the used stacks and it's not streaming currently.

Maybe one day (I doubt it, but one can hope), another well produced Nero Wolfe series may appear on the scene.  Not sure who among the current available actors could pull off a believable Nero Wolfe, however.  Unfortunately Chaykin passed away a few years ago, so it would have to be somebody else, and the role is limited in it's potential prospects, given the size of Wolfe himself.  (God forbid they get somebody like an Arnold or Sylvester and put a fat suit on them... and if you needed last names there, boy are you a newcomer...)

Well, folks, if you happen upon this great adaptation, it's worth a look. And if you only get to one or two, might I suggest you start with The Doorbell Rang as your first?  You really get to see Archie (Hutton) at his best and Nero (Chaykin) holds his own especially in moments of exasperation with others.

Drive safely folks.

Quiggy