Catacombs Reference Library
Space 1999 - SERIES ONE

The Regular Players

Nick Tate was one of many young actors being interviewed for roles in the "SPACE 1999" .series. It just happened that the day he went along to the studios, they were searching in particular for someone to play an Italian space pilot.

The fair-haired, Australian-born Nick Tate didn't look in the least Italian. But producers Gerry and Sylvia Andersen liked him. So the role of the chief space pilot Alan Carter was developed for him, and as the series develops Carter becomes an increasingly dominant figure in the stories. It is one of the most important roles next to those of the stars themselves, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse.

The friendship between Alan Carter and Commander Koenig is an essential part of the dramatic action with the two men facing untold dangers as the pilot takes the Commander on the space journeys from the moon.

Unexpected things are always happening to the good- looking Nick Tate.

That he is an actor should cause no surprise. His father is the noted character actor John Tate. His mother is also an actress (and singer), Neva Carr-Glynn, who works in Australia.

Nick was born in Sydney in 1942. And, he says, "I might well have made my stage debut from the moment I was born. My mother was acting almost up to the last moment of her pregnancy!"

Nick began as a child actor. His parents were divorced when he was 12, and he remained in Australia while his father went to England. Nick followed in his foot- steps later on, to meet with mixed fortunes. "A fair amount of TV work and some small parts in films," he says "but there were long out-of-work periods and I did all sorts of other jobs - lifeguard, at swimming pools, demonstrating at exhibitions, market research among them.

He had roles in such shows as "Sherlock Holmes", "The Troubleshooters", "The Detectives" and several plays, and was in the films "Battle of Britain", "Submarine -X-l", "The High Commissioner" and "Man For All Seasons".

Then came a big opportunity. He was asked to audition for one of the leading roles in "Canterbury Tales" for presentation in Australia. So he found himself back again in his own country, expecting to remain for only eleven weeks. He stayed five years.

"Because," he explains, "the tour was a huge success and continued for 18 months. Then I went into a TV series, "Dynasty", which ran for a couple of seasons. I did some other things in between, and then got a great stage chance in David Williamson's "Don's Party", which had rave reviews. So I was over there for very much longer than I'd expected before I got back to England.

He appeared with his father in the TV series. They played father and son. But only for the first season.

"He'd got to get back to England again," Nick Tate exclaims. "So we killed him off!"

And literally within days of reaching London again, Nick Tate found himself with his long-running role o£ Alan Carter in "Space 1999".

Prentis Hancock, is seen as one of the key figures in Mission Control, Paul Morrow, As such, he has one of the leading roles among the regulars in the cast. Paul is second-in-command to Commander Koenig.

Like most actors, Prentis Hancock enjoys the opportunity to travel when film locations provide the chance to do so, and he has been lucky in this respect. Not long before joining "Space 1999", he was filming a top the 7,000 ft. Unterberg Mountain in Austria for an episode of "The Protectors" series. Now he finds himself on the moon!

"Unfortunately", he says, regretfully, "there was no location trip for me this time. All the moon scenes are filmed in the studios!"

In one of the episodes, he is seen playing the guitar, an instrument he has been playing since he was 12 years old. During one period of his career, he used it for a singing act. "But it's now just a hobby," he says. He is also a professional fencing instructor, and his acting career is as varied as his other activities, divided between the theatre and television, with occasional movies. Stage work has included the Chichester Festival Theatre production of "The Caucasian Chalk Circle", with Topol, and such plays as "Lock Up Your Daughters", "The Best of Friends" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

He is not entirely new to science fiction. He had his first taste of this in the "Dr. Who" series. The many other TV series and plays in which he has appeared include "Shadow of the Tower", "Olympus", "Dixon of Dock Green", "Dr. Finlay's Casebook", "Paul Temple" "The Last of the Mohicans" (with the running role of Lt. Grant), "Z Cars", "The Frighteners", "Softly, Softly", two series of "Spy Trap" (as the naval agent Lt. Sanders) and "Colditz" (as a Scots prisoner who got killed).

Anton Phillips portrays Dr. Mathias, working closely with Barbara Bain's Dr. Helena Russell and seen prominently in every episode of the series.

It marks the first-ever film appearance of this actor from Jamaica, though he has appeared in a number of taped TV shows including "Warship" (as an able-seaman) and "Barlow at Large" (as one of the villains).

Anton finished his schooling in New York, where he first studied drama, and then returned to Jamaica with the intention of concentrating on radio, but before long he made his way to London, after a further brief visit to America. "I thought of studying drama in London"; he says, "but changed my mind at the last minute and took a job as a book--keeper in the accounts department of Equity".

It was a surprising job. He had never done book-keeping in his life; Less surprisingly, he gave this up to take another job, this time as a passport officer in the Jamaican High Commission in London. Then he stopped working to write a play which won a prize in a Jamaican festival. He next underwent drama training at the Rose Bruford College, and made his first stage appearance in "Education" at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry followed by Marowitz's "An Othello" at the Open Space Theatre, playing Othello, and then in Anouilh's "Ceremony for a Murdered Black" before winning his running role in "Space 1999".

Clifton Jones, who plays the part of Computer controller David Kano, also comes -from Jamaica, but has lived in England since he was 16 1/2 in 1958 and studied at the Italian Conti Stage School, and while still a student appearing in "Billy Budd". Numerous other stage roles followed, on tour and in repertory and such London productions as "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl" and "A Taste of Honey".

While serving in the RAF, for-his National Service, he was given leave to appear in "Green Pastures", which was his first big break on television. Prior to this, he had made his TV debut in "Emergency - Ward 10" in the running role of Dr. Sanders. He was with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal, Stratford E., company for two years; has be-on in such films as "V.I.P's", "Decline and Fall" and "Innocent Bystanders", and television plays by the score.

Zienia Merton, portrays computer expert Sandra Bones, working closely with David Kano, and a role that began quite modestly very soon expanded into the most important regular feminine part next to Barbara Bain's. "All sorts of amazing things happen to me!" she exclaims.

The elfin-eyed, dark-haired, exotic young actress is of British nationality but her background is extra- ordinarily varied: daughter of a half-English, half-French father and a Burmese mother; born in the small independent state of Brunei in Borneo; brought up in Singapore, Portugal, Borneo and England.

The international hot-spot has inevitably played a very wide range of exotic nationalities including Chinese, Kashmiri, Pakistani and many other Oriental characters.

She admits: "I suppose I am an Eurasian more than anything else, but I feel completely Western. I'm English in thought and action!"

The 5'2" Zienia left her parents to study dancing in London and then decided to study drama as well. Her acting debut was as an elf in an open air production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; her movie debut as a Chinese girl seducing Gregory Peck in "The Chairman"; and a familiar figure to viewers in many British-made television productions.

Suzanne Roquette, another regular in the role of a Mission Control operator named Tanya, is by contrast to Zienia Merton a cool blonde of German birth from Berlin - her French-sounding name, she explains, coming from Hugeunot ancestry. Hazel-eyed and 5 "5" in height, she has the Common Market to thank for being a glamorous recruit to the English television scene.

"Because, " she explains, "when Britain entered the Common Market it opened new opportunities for Continental players to act in England, and I was quick to take advantage of these opportunities.

For the same reason, there was an immediate opening for her in the German Language TV programmes being made by ATV, which led to a role in an episode of the "Special Branch" series. She brought with her the experience of drama training, German films and television work both in her own country and in Poland.

One recent film, "The Revenge of Dr. Fu Manchu", took her on location to Hong Kong.

And mention of Hong Kong brings us to another of the "Space 1999" Main Mission Control operators, Chai Lee, who represents China in several of the episodes. Born in Canton, China, she was brought up in Hong Kong. Then her mother remarried, this time to an Englishman and moved to London. Chai arrived in England without knowing a word of English, was sent to an English school and remained in London when her parents moved to America. Small parts in TV shows and films led to a running role, as an escort girl in the series "Man of Affairs".

England's representative on the Main Mission control board is Sarah Bullen, the youngest member of the famous Bullen equestrian family that represented Great Britain in the last four Olympics.

Sarah was virtually brought up in the saddle and when she decided to become an actress she naturally thought her riding would be a useful accomplishment. "I thought there would be opportunities in historical films," she says. "You can imagine my surprise when my first role turned out to be a girl in space. You can't ride a horse on the moon!"

Sarah is a descendant of Anne Boleyn. "Bullen", she says, "was her real name. She changed it to Boleyn because it sounded more romantic. The family thought it safer to revert to Bullen afterwards!"

There is no shortage of glamour in "Space 1999". Throughout the series, various other young actresses appear on the control panel as well as in other roles.