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Post by LucianG on Feb 12, 2016 13:03:49 GMT -6
One never knows what or whom one might see while flipping channels, especially if one of those channels is one of the low budget networks that generally broadcasts reruns from the 70s and 80s. Sometimes there's even a BSG tie-in.
Last night, I came upon scene where people were on a passenger jet and a young lady in a military uniform was sitting with a guy. I was about to key forward until she said something, at which point I hit info and looked up the episode. Sure enough, it was the second episode (or 5th, if you count the three telemovies before it went to actual series) of The Six Million Dollar Man from early 1974 with a very young Laurette Spang, BSG's Cassiopeia, as one of the guest stars.
In addition, Christine Belford, who later played Leda in the episode Ice Planet Zero, was Laurette's character's boss or at least moral support on the island after the plane suffered a mishap.
Though I hadn't seen the episode, "Survival of the Fittest," in probably 40 years, I knew that Steve shouldn't let down his guard with at least one of these ladies around, and sure enough....
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Post by Col. Charybdis on Feb 16, 2016 10:59:26 GMT -6
How cool! Yeah, it's amazing how many of these stars were in a lot of the shows back then...
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Post by LucianG on Feb 26, 2016 11:54:32 GMT -6
GRIT is currently running the old (I'm reluctant to use that since it ended right after I was born!) western show "Laramie" with John Smith and Robert Fuller (Emergency). I've watched two or three episodes recently and was surprised to see DeForest Kelley (Bones from Star Trek) and Russell Johnson (the Professor from GI) as guest stars. In looking through the IMDB listings of shows from that time period, it wasn't uncommon for a star to appear on a show three, four, or even five times as a different character each time. Rechecking, Kelley played different characters on two episodes of Laramie, and Johnson played five different characters on it over three seasons! Some of the BG actors have similar resumes.
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Post by LucianG on Apr 5, 2016 12:03:18 GMT -6
Here's another "Laramie" sighting that was a bit unusual with a Battlestar Galactica actor.
In Season 4, Episode 11, Time of the Traitor, Lew Ayres, who would play President Adar about 16 years later, played Doctor Samuel Mudd.
American history buffs might recognize that name as the man who treated the escaping John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on the evening of April 14, 1865. Lincoln died early in the morning on April 15, 1865, and Booth, who broke his leg jumping from the balcony, sought medical aid from Dr. Mudd later that day. Mudd learned of the assassination late that day, but did not report Booth's escape until the next day. He was arrested, found guilty of aiding and conspiring in Lincoln's murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He escaped the death penalty by a single vote. In 1869, shortly before leaving office, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Mudd following his efforts in bringing a yellow fever outbreak under control and saving the lives of prisoners and guards alike while he was in prison. This was following an escape attempt a couple of years earlier!
Following his release, Doctor Mudd returned home to his farm to resume his medical practice. In the show, however, he took a trip out west shortly after his release and ended up in Laramie for a few days, where the episode began.
Overall, it was a good and somewhat thought provoking episode.
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Post by Col. Charybdis on Apr 7, 2016 12:05:30 GMT -6
Pretty cool how they are mixing in real life with that show. Very interesting historical stuff!
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Post by LucianG on Apr 19, 2016 11:22:41 GMT -6
I mentioned Bones and the Professor on Laramie in a recent post, so here's another Laramie sighting.
One of the age-old "you can tell a lot about a person" questions* for guys for the past 50 years or so has been Ginger or Mary Ann. After seeing a very young Dawn Wells in the saloon girl outfit on a recent episode, that question might no longer be quite as valid for some as it once was. The episode was about a year before the start of Gilligan's Island.
*The Today Show website says it is a "classic pop-psychological question that's as much about personality and expectations as good looks."
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Post by LucianG on Apr 22, 2016 12:59:38 GMT -6
A near miss! I found an old episode of The Untouchables on TV a few nights ago and paused for a moment since I recognized Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon from Batman). It was near the end of the episode (Season 3, Episode 23), but I did a quick search and found that I'd missed George Murdock (Dr. Salik) in one of his first acting roles.
And not Galactica related but another interesting Laramie sighting: Ross Martin, later a top Secret Service agent and master of disguises playing people of various nationalities on The Wild, Wild West, tuned up for the role in an episode by playing a Mexican bandit who could learn from his mistakes.
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Post by LucianG on Apr 25, 2016 10:40:22 GMT -6
Another Battlestar Galactica player sighting occurred over the weekend. In addition to a couple of sightings of the regular stars, I found this little gem:
The actor was one of the top Hollywood draws in the 1930s and 1940s, with his name and face on many movie posters for Paramount Pictures productions. He had his name listed in the credits above John Wayne in their movie together, and he was one of the few people who got to beat up the Duke on screen!
In this comedy from 1942, the future Battlestar Galactica actor played opposite one of Hollywood's most bankable female stars. The young lady was just over 30 years old at the time, but in the movie, she had to start pretending that she was a very young 12 years of age in order to purchase a half-price train ticket to be able to get from New York to the Mid West. When her secret is discovered by the conductors, the "girl" accidentally takes refuge with the future Galatica star, a major in the United States Army, and the rest of the movie is a mix of humor and angst with a couple of cringeworthy scenes thrown in to remind viewers that Ginger Rogers, the female protagonist, was a genuine Hollywood sex symbol.
The movie in question was "The Major and the Minor", and Ray Milland was the star. Years later, a much older Ray Milland, almost unrecognizable from his role over 35 years earlier, played the rather despicable Sire Uri in Saga of a Star World.
When Apollo (I think) wonders aloud how Uri could have been elected to the newly elected Council of the Twelve, Lorne Greene as Adama just may have been paying Milland a compliment when he says that they didn't know Uri (Milland) back in his younger days.
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Post by Col. Charybdis on Apr 27, 2016 9:45:43 GMT -6
yes, and another old actor who starred in Saga who was in many old movies was Lew Ayres. I catch him every so often on TCM.
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Post by LucianG on Apr 28, 2016 11:01:29 GMT -6
Another good sighting last night, this time with George Murdock (Dr. Salik) in a first season episode of The Six Million Dollar Man ("Run, Steve, Run"). Murdock's character is paying the robot doctor to find out how Steve ticks so the doctor can produce a new version of bionic robots. He had a number of lines, but with the guns and tactical manuevers and horses, much of the episode reminded me of a bad knock-off of the A-Team crossed with The Men from Shiloh.
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