Catacombs Reference LibrarySpace 1999 - SERIES ONE
Catacombs Reference LibraryThis is the brochure given to the press describing Year One of Space: 1999. See also the Year 2 brochure.
The teeming of Martin Landau with his wife Barbara Bain in "Space 1999" is an exciting one. It recalls the tremendous success they had as co-stars of the first 80 episodes of the internationally popular "Mission: Impossible" series.
But they are not a husband and wife team in the way that so many players of the Lunt-Fontanne school are. They have their own independent careers, and Martin Landau's own career has been an outstanding one on stage, television and in films alike.
Acting was not a premeditated career for the 6'3" dark-haired New Yorker (born in Brooklyn; birthday June 20th), although he was always interested and fascinated by the theatre.
It seemed at first that his career would be in art. He studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York and became a staff artist, cartoonist and illustrator on the New York Daily News.
It was a well-paid job. The weekly pay-check came in regularly. But it was the security of it, more than anything else, that brought about his rebellion. He could see himself doing exactly the same work for the remainder of his life if he left it too late to break away from it. Life, he felt, had more to offer than being stuck in the same job all the time.
So he quit. And became an actor. The decision was made on the spur of the moment, but he had been thinking about it for sometime.
It wasn't easy, of course. The first thing to discover was whether or not he held it in him to become an actor, and he succeeded in getting summer stock work which enabled him to assess his own potentialities. Analytical self-appraisal satisfied him that the potentialities were there but that an ability to act was not something that just happened. It needed bringing out, professional training. So for the next three years he studied at drama classes, worked with "little theatre" groups and did some off-Broadway plays.
After this, another season of summer stock, a further off-Broadway appearance and a small-part in a "live" show for his TV debut.
He then went to Lee Strasberg's world-famous Actors Studio to continue his training and to become a lifetime member of The Studio.
His career developed steadily. There was no spectacular overnight success. His roles varied enormously. He was a psychopathic killer in a tour of "Detective Story"; a millionaire playboy in "Stalag 17".
New York followed. He was in a revival of Franz Werfel's "Goat Song", portraying the role originally played in 1926 by Alfred Lunt. Though still in his twenties, he played the fifty-year-old Dr. Astrov in Chekov's "Uncle Vanya".
He also did some drama teaching. While assisting Curt. Conway, an ambitious young (and extremely beautiful) high fashion model named Barbara Bain came along. With more than a modelling career in mind, she was studying both modern dance and drama. Both admit that it was anything but love at first sight. They disliked one another intensely. A little later, it was a very different story, developing from their meeting in the more relaxed atmosphere of a party.
By this time, things were beginning to happen for Martin. He had landed a prominent role with Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayefsky's play "Middle of the Night" It had a long run on Broadway and then took off on tour. An ideal opportunity, Martin and Barbara decided, to get married and treat the tour as a honeymoon, especially as Barbara succeeded in joining the cast.
"Middle of the Night" finished its run in Los Angeles the Landaus stayed on for a two weeks' vacation - and remained. A new chapter had opened in their careers. Films.
Martin made his movie debut as a sinister spy in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest", and was established right away on the screen. One movie followed another: "Pork Chop Hill", "The Gazebo", "Cleopatra", (which took him to Rome, Egypt, Spain and London), "The Greatest Story Ever Told", "The Hallelujah Trail" and "Nevada Smith". And numerous T.V. roles.
It remained for television to make his name a household word throughout the world. He was asked if he would appear in the first episode of "Mission: Impossible". It was an intriguing prospect. He was to portray 'Rollin Hand', master of disguise, and it meant appearing in five different characterizations in the one segment.
The rest is history. With Barbara as 'Cinnamon Carter' in the same series, they remained for 80 episodes.
Martin hasn't done a series since then until linking up professionally again with his wife for "Space 1999". In the intervening years, he has continued his movie career and has travelled widely, his work taking him to Sicily, Rome, Yugoslavia, Spain and elsewhere for such pictures as "Win" (for Dino de Laurentis), "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs", "A Town Called Bastard", "Black Gunn", "Mission Impossible: vs The Mob", and "Welcome Home Johnny Bristol", plus guest shots on numerous TV programmes and movies made for television.
He and Barbara have two daughters, Susan Meredith and Juliet Rose.
Barbara Bain has no reason to be superstitious. She came into the world one Friday the 13th, and it was quite an auspicious start: to life. She didn't wait until her mother arrived at the maternity hospital but was born in a car en route for the hospital!
Which may have been unlucky for her mother, but Barbara is the first to agree that she herself has been lucky all her life. Lucky to have made it as a high fashion model very early in her career. Lucky to have met Martin Landau while she was still a drama .student. Lucky to have had a very happy marriage which has lasted since February 10th 1957. Lucky to be the mother of two adorable daughters. Lucky in her career and particularly lucky to have won fans in every corner of the globe as the modern Mata Hari "Cinnamon Carter" in the "Mission: Impossible" series. And now, she says, lucky to find herself working all the time for a whole year once more with her husband in "Space 1999".
And, of course, lucky to have been born beautiful: She's blonde, with green eyes and 5'7" in height. And ifs not miscasting that she should be portraying an extremely intelligent doctor in "Space 1999". At school, she gained her B.S. degree in Sociology.
Acting was not in her mind when she made her way from home-town Chicago, Illinois, to New York. She wanted to become a dancer, and she enrolled as a student of modern dance under Martha Graham. But a girl has to live and also pay the rent. A part-time job was needed. Barbara had the looks and the figure which, a friend suggested, could get her into modelling. In less than no time, she was a highly successful model. It wasn't a career that she liked, even though it more than paid the rent and her dance studies.
Dancing was just one step from acting, and she decided to take drama lessons. To do so, she visited the Curt Conway acting School without guessing how much this was going to affect her private life as well as her career. At first, she was profoundly unimpressed by Conway's part-time assistant, Martin Landau, any more than he was impressed by her. A week later, they met at a party. Both reversed their early impressions. Before they night was out, they were in love, or well on the way to being in love at any rate.
Barbara began her acting in summer stock. A few TV roles came her way. Then she and Martin got married. In fact, they married twice, the first time at New York's City Hall, followed ten days later by a religious ceremony.
Martin was just off on tour with the play "Middle of the Night", and Barbara succeeded in getting an under- study to the lead job and a small part in the same show. The tour was their honeymoon.
In Hollywood, they went their separate ways professionally, with Martin combining films with television and Barbara concentrating on television. Her first rule in a series was as a fashion designer in "Richard Diamond Private Detective", in which she appeared with David Janssen. Sue played guest spots in "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Get Smart", "Bonanza", "The Greatest Show on Earth", "Studio One", "Kraft Theatre", and many others, including variety appearances with the Smothers Brothers, Jonathan Winters, Kraft Music Hall. She also did stage work with the Theatre West, and various other groups.
Then, of course, along came "Mission Impossible". She won the Television Academy "Emmy" Award as best actress in a dramatic series three years in succession - an all-time record.
Departure from that series after eighty segments gave her more time to devote herself to her two daughters, to accompany Martin on the location trips which took him abroad and to restrict herself to one-shot productions including TV Movies of the Week. Now, in London for "Space 1999", she is not only again starring with Martin in a series but, of course, they have their children with them.
Doesn't regard it as at all surprising that he should be whipped off to the moon as cm English professor for "Space 1999". Nothing surprises him any more about the profession which has provided him with one unexpected turn after another.
He has a habit of identifying himself with long- running roles without the slightest risk of becoming typecast. He will undoubtedly do so again in "Space 1999" just as he played the ever-pursuing Lieut. Gerard some hundred times in "The Fugitive", was the very contrasting, urbane "Establishment" figure Mr. Parminter in "The Adventurer" series and, again a completely different characterisation, was the Canadian member of the regrouped former Resistance Movement team in "The Zoo Gang".
Between these running roles, he has played almost every type of part - even a belly dancer and a black prostitute!
The most surprising thing about Barry Morse himself, perhaps, is that he is a Londoner and as near as could be a genuine Cockney without actually being born within the sound of Bow Bells. But not far away - in London's East End Bethnal Green which Cockneys themselves pronounce "Befnel Green". Barry tends to do so, even today.
His beautifully modulated voice betrays no hint of his background. "I used to have a real Cockney accent!" he exclaims and admits that he finds himself slipping back into it when visiting his ex-London policeman brother, who has retained the accent in its full richness.
Today, a lot of people believe him to be American or Canadian - American because of all the films and TV shows he has done in the United States, becoming one of the few Englishmen to be cast as an American; Canadian because he has spent a great deal of his life there, still regards it as his second home and still does a lot of work there.
"I am fortunate, I suppose," he says, "in always having been a natural mimic. It's never been difficult for me to pick up accents."
It was this sense of mimicry that first made him think about becoming an actor. At the time, he was an errand boy, cycling around London and delivering samples to potential customers for a glass manufacturing company for a wage of fifteen shillings a week.
With true Cockney cheek, he presented himself at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and applied for an audition. They not only accepted him but gave him a student grant of three pounds a week. It was untold wealth!
His mother was alarmed and disbelieving. It was beyond her comprehension that a boy could earn only 15/- a week for working yet get paid £3 a week as a student. She was even more disturbed that he would be in the very heart of London. Bethnal Green was only three miles away, but she had never even visited London's West End, and didn't even go so to see Barry when he was in West End theatres, though she did see him (very proudly, too) when he appeared at the local East End People's Theatre.
"The last thing she did before I set off for my first day at RADA," Barry recalls, "was to insist on my putting on a clean shirt!"
Barry's professional debut was at the People's Theatre in "If I Were King". Four years of repertory followed, then his London West End debut in "School for Slavery". His next step was to become producer, director and star of "The Voice of the Turtle" on tour.
He went into films with a part in the Will Hay comedy, "The Goose Steps Out", side by side with another newcomer, Peter Ustinov. "At that time," he chuckles, "Peter was as slim as Barbara Bain is now - and I had a head of hair!"
He was very early on the scene with television work, and he progressed in films as a character actor in such pictures as "Thunder Rock", "When We Are Married", "There's A Future In It", "This Man Is Mine", "Mrs. Fitzherbert" and "Daughter of Darkness".
He married very early in his career, when meeting Canadian actress Sydney Sturgess, who was in repertory with him. They had a son, Hayward, (now a successful actor) and a daughter, Melanie, (who, since following in parental acting footsteps, has become an Artistes' Agent in Canada), and an unexpected change came in Barry's career when he and his wife went to Canada to display their children to her relatives.
Television was just starting up in Canada, and Barry remained in Toronto to become a TV producer, director and actor, winning the Best TV Actor Award five times.
He also visited America for Hollywood productions, both films and television, with guest roles in such series as "Dr. Kildare" (as a Romanian drug-smuggler!) and "Wagon Train" (as a drunken Irish journalist). And, of course, he won international acclaim as Lieut. Gerard in "The Fugitive".
His return to England was to visit Hayward and Melanie who were studying at RADA. Roger Moore caught up with him, and Barry appeared in an episode of "The Saint". It was the resumption of his English career but, although he does a lot of his work in Britain these days, he has returned to Canada numerous times to do TV work both as actor and producer, has played Broadway in "Hadrian the Seventh", has produced plays both in America and England, has been in such TV shows as "Summer and Smoke", "The Poet Game", "Sweeney Todd", and the serial of Henry James' "The Golden Bowl".
On completing "The Zoo Gang" in England, he went to Canada again for more television work including a guest role in the "Starlost" series, two documentaries about his favourite author George Bernard Shaw, portraying Shaw, a series on social history "The Days Before Yesterday", for which he did the commentary, a documentary about Jerusalem (which meant a location trip there) and a radio series on Aldous Huxley.
And in 1968 this incredibly versatile man was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Drama Department of Yale University, spending one semester lecturing there!
Space: 1999 copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment