Catacombs Reference LibraryPress
Mission Stars Back
Catacombs Reference LibraryBy Kenneth Stoffels (Milwaukee Sentinel, 15 August 1975)
NOT SINCE the Starship USS Enterprise trundled off to the planet Halkan and equally imaginative corners of the firmament in "Star Trek" has television witnessed such high adventure in space as takes place in "Space: 1999."
On the brink of the next century, the realm of force fields, antimatter and appropriately heinous creatures from other worlds dot the path of a group of struggling Earth people marooned on a runaway moon in "Space: 1999."
"Space: 1999" is a new $6.5 million science-fiction series consisting of 24 hour-long episodes produced in England over the past two years by a company that is part of the empire of Sir Lew Grade, the British television pioneer who is head of Associated Television Corp. Ltd.
"Space: 1999" is scheduled to debut in syndication this fall over 150 television stations nationwide and still others in 100 foreign countries. Channel 18 will carry the series here Saturdays, beginning Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.
"I think we've got a great look to it, a fantastic set and special effects that have never been seen on television," said an enthused actress Barbara Bain. Miss Bain, who was on the phone from Beverly Hills, Calif., stars in the new offering with her husband, Martin Landau.
THE LANDAUS appear together in "Space: 1999" for the first time since their teamwork in "Mission: Impossible" terminated in a contractual brouhaha resulting in their departure from the Desilu-Paramount series
In 1969, Miss Bain won three Emmys for her Mission role of the supercool, calculating agent Cinnamon Carter.
In the intervening six years, both wife and husband jaunted to motion picture locales across the world, and Miss Bain also appeared in several made for TV movies.
The heroes and heroines of "Space: 1999" are a suffering colony of space age Robinson Crusoes - the more than 300 Earth personnel of a defense installation on the surface of the moon. Without warning in the first episode, the moon and its stranded Inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha are catapulted into a dizzying uncontrollable course by the thermonuclear explosion of a manmade lunar garbage dump of atomic waste.
Following the cataclysm, the muckamucks who attempt to bring order out of chaos among the castaways are Cmdr. John Koenig (Landau) and Dr. Helena Russell (Miss Bain), chief medical officer of Moonbase Alpha.
"We are barely able to sustain ourselves, and we're kind of hoping to find a place where we can settle, a planet that will be compatible," said Miss Bain.
BRITISH ACTOR Barry Morse co-stars as Professor Victor Bergman, scientist developer of Moonbase Alpha who once tutored Cmdr. Koenig. Complementing the cast are "some young English actors and a cross section of people from different countries, adding an international flavour," according to Miss Bain.
A native Chicagoan and one-time New York fashion model, Miss Bain noted that the form fitting space suit worn by Moonbase Alpha personnel was created by Rudi Gernreich, the fashion designer who brought us the topless bathing suit. "But I'm not sure that there's one topless lady in the whole 24 hours. I won't promise you that," declared the blond haired actress.
by Judy Flander, Washington Star, 23rd August 1975
Come Sept. 13, Martin Landau and his wife, Barbara Bain, will be launched on another impossible mission. Dressed in futuristic costumes by designer Rudi Gernreich, they'll be travelling through space aboard the moon, bound for unknown planets and who-knows-what adventures.
Stars of 80 episodes of Mission Impossible, the Landaus are together again in a new TV series, "Space: 1999," which premieres simultaneously in 130 countries (WMAL-7 locally). They were here this week to spread the word about the series.
ASK LANDAU what's so special about "Space: 1999," and the first thing he tells you is that the cost of the 24 episodes is astronomical - $6,500,000. This is partly because the special effects are the work of people like Brian Johnson, who has the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey to his credit. Landau said if the series had been produced in the United States instead of London, it would have cost $400,000 an episode and "Space: 1999" would never have gotten off the ground.
Fortunately, Landau said, Sir Lew Grade, a wealthy show biz entrepreneur, decided to back the series. It was produced for Independent Television Corp. by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and has a cosmopolitan cast consisting of "50 percent women and 50 percent men." In "Space: 1999," they are among the 300 technicians on "Moonbase Alpha" when the moon is wrenched from orbit by nuclear explosions. Bain plays a doctor, while Landau is the base commander.
THE LANDAUS and their daughters, Susan. 15, and Juliet, 10, lived in London for 20 months While they were shooting the series, and they'll all be happy to go back and shoot 24 more episodes if the series is successful. Landau is off in a of weeks for to work in a movie with Gayle Hunicutt and Stuart Whitman. He also wants to start production on a script he has written: "Did You Hear What Happened to Frank? or, I Don't Know How to Tell You This." Everybody who's read it says its terrific, said Landau.
The Landaus seem at home in space. When they decided they wanted to co- star in another TV series, they were offered several plots - " Mr. and Mrs. North-type things, like 'The Thin Man Beats His Dog,'" and a remake of all the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn films. They turned those ideas down because they already had been done - "It was a moment in time that couldn't be repeated."
So they're up in space now, coping with the future. And for the Landaus, that future looks rosy.
Terrence O'Flaherty, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 August 1975 p40
Mission: Impossible was one of the best of all possible television shows. It had a solid format. It had style. And it had a remarkable pair Of performers Barbara Bain and Martin Landau, a man-and-wife team which left its stamp on the series long after they departed in mid-run in 1968.
They will resurface next month on KRON- TV as the co-stars Of television's first galaxy spectacle. Space 1999, a series which is guaranteed to drop a science fiction fan at 20 paces with the finest special effects on the tube. The Landaus were in San Francisco recently to talk about going into orbit.
In roles like Cinnamon Carter Mission: Impossible on Miss Bain has a marvellously sleek look which sets her apart from the rest Of the medium's lady-look-alikes and I am happy to report that her sleekness carries over, intact, to her offstage personality. She has an elegant stride to her walk and a jaunty air to her conversation.
During lunch it was quite an experience to gaze at close range into those wide-set, cool green eyes and find my conversation floundering among the breadsticks and vichyssoise.
"Uh, let's see, now, where was I? ... You are aware, I am sure, that a man feels in danger of falling right down into those eyes of yours?"
"I know the look," she purred. "It bothers Martin more than it does me."
I almost forgot. Landau was at lunch too. The Filmgoer's Companion describes him as "A gaunt American actor often seen in sinister roles." That's pretty good. But he's anything but sinister in person. Instead he's more youthful than I had expected. He was a good friend of the late James Dean - "My very best friend," he said, "in New York and later in Hollywood. I have tapes of the two of us reading Shakespeare that run for hours. Shortly after he died I was offered $10,000 for them. Brit we. had done them for fun. I could never sell them. And I was broke in those days too. Can you believe that Jimmy died years ago? "
Landau's television career goes back to the very first You are There - a re-enactment of the explosion of the dirigible "Hindenburg." In an early production of Omnibus he played John The Baptist opposite Eartha Kitt's Salome. It was a drama that did not end happily for John.
"I remember it well," said Miss Bain. "They made a wax likeness of his head and he brought it over to my apartment wrapped in a newspaper after the performance. You could hear my scream for blocks - and those were the days when people came out when someone screamed!"
They met at the first actors workshop she attended. Landau was the instructor. He thought she was "terribly green" and she thought he was arrogant. They were married in 1957.
The Landaus have just returned from London where they have lived for over a year and a half while filming the first 24 episodes of Space: 1999. It was a time of pleasant memories and hard work during which they managed to shiver their way through the energy crisis and watch their two attractive daughters become teenagers.
"It as so cold on those sound stages that everything the props, the air and you - were like ice," said Miss Bain. "In one scene I remember picking up a prop. I couldn't feel it but when my eye saw it, I knew it was in my hand!"
Space 1999, easily the most expensive TV series ever made ($275,000 per had been made [per] episode in England; $500,000 if it Hollywood) will be previewed on September 5 at 10 p.m. on Channel 4 and thereafter settle down to a long run on Saturdays at 7 p.m.
By Joseph Theshen, Copley News Service (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, 29 September 1975)
Barbara Bain was one of the sexiest girls on in the days of Mission: Impossible. She was the spicy Cinnamon Carter, undercover agent who used her charms and wit to trap the villains. They usually surrendered willingly, for the privilege of spending a little time with her.
Over six years have passed since Barbara and her husband, Martin Landau, bolted that show over a contract dispute. They had some lean years then, picking up work where they found it.
Now Miss Bain, as pretty as ever, has landed a new series called Space: 1999.
As the title indicates, she will be airborne - the chief medical officer on Moon base Alpha, an early-warning defense system on the moon.
The series has served to reunite her with husband Landau in a professional way. He has the top role, playing Cmdr. Koenig, who has the responsibility to command this outpost in space.
They recently returned to this country after 20 months of filming in England. The series is said to be the most expensive science fiction show to be produced for TV. Over $6.5 million was spent by the Independent Television Corp. of England to shoot the 24 episodes at Pinetree Studios [sic] outside London.
Barbara disclosed some of the plot lines for the episodes you'll be seeing in the fall.
"Just to fill you in on the concept of 'Space: 1999, there is a thermonuclear explosion on the moon which blasts it out of the earth's orbit," she explained. "So we're launched on a series of adventures across the universe.
"We need to find a place to locate, but because of the blast we have very little con- trol over the moon base. We have only limited power.
"In fact, one of our episodes is about that. A crew member, for some mysterious reason, drains energy from people. They become like blocks of ice. Then he begins draining our nuclear energy source. He becomes a threat to our very existence. What are we going to do with him? That's the story line.
"In another episode, a baby is born on Alpha. In a five- hour period he becomes 5 years old, because of the rapid growth period while in space.
"Again, this phenomenon of growth is of concern to all the members of the base."
Among the other adventures the space travellers meet are an interplanetary war in which they become innocently involved and finding a planet that is inhabited even though the temperature is a constant 130 degrees below zero.