Ray Austin, stuntman and director, dies

Ray Austin, who went from being a stunt performer to a director on television programs in the U.K, and U.S., died this week at 90, according to an announcement on his website.

As a stuntman, Austin worked uncredited on films such as North by Northwest, Spartacus, and Operation Petticoat, according his IMDB.COM ENTRY.

He was also a stunt performer and stunt arranger on TV shows such as The Avengers in the 1960s. He transitioned into being a director on that series as well as its 1970s revival, The New Avengers.

Austin ended up helming a variety of shows, including Hawaii Five-O, Barnaby Jones, Return of the Saint, Wonder Woman, and A Man Called Sloane.

His credits also included the 1983 made-for-TV movie, The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. That production reunited series stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. It also had a cameo with George Lazenby as “JB.”

Austin’s directing credits extended to 1999, according to IMDB.

In 2021, Austin conducted a livestream with some cast members of The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. They included Anthony Zerbe, who played the villain on the TV movie and who later was a secondary villain in the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill.

Notable birthdays for women of the spycraze

Barbara Feldon with Don Adams on a TV Guide cover

Over the past week, some of the actresses of the 1960s spy craze celebrated notable birthdays.

Barbara Feldon (b. 1933): She is best known for co-starring in Get Smart (1965-70). Agent 99 was, well, smarter than CONTROL’s Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). But she loved the guy and eventually, 99 and Max got married. Feldon has had a long career.

The TV season before Get Smart, Feldon was a guest star on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in The Never-Never Affair. Feldon played an U.N.C.L.E. employee who yearned for adventure. The episode, written by Dean Hargrove, was one of the best episodes of the 1964-68 series.

Nancy Kovack (b. 1935): The actress appeared on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (two episodes, different characters), The Silencers, Batman, Get Smart, The Secret Life of Henry Phyffe (a situation comedy with Red Buttons who looks identically alike to a recently deceased spy), Hawaii Five-O, and The FBI (including one episode where her character was part of a spy ring).

Leslie Parrish (b. 1935): She played the doomed girlfriend in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as well as characters in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West.series, including the first Dr. Loveless story.

A Hawaii Five-O scribe dies

Hawaii Five-O logo in the main title

Robert Janes, who wrote several of the late episodes of Hawaii Five-O, has died at age 82, according to the Writer’s Guild of America website.

Janes’ association with the series began with the first episode of the 1977-78 season, Up the Rebels. That would be the final acting credit for actor Stephen Boyd. Boyd played an Irish terrorist who disguised himself as a priest.

Janes would be one of the main writers for Five-O’s 10th and 11th seasons. That included the final episode of season 10, when long-time character Chin Ho Kelly was killed off in A Death in the Family. Janes also penned a two-part story in the 11th season concerning an organized crime fight for control of Hawaii’s disco industry.

Janes also wrote a two-hour episode, A Lion in the Streets, that led off Five-O’s final season.

Janes died Feb. 1, according to the WGA website.

American actor Robert Brown dies

Robert Brown (1926-2022)

Robert Brown, an American actor who had a long career on television, has died at 95, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Brown’s bio at IMDB.COM lists 31 credits from 1948 to 1994. He was also in the running for two prominent roles in 1960s television.

The actor was among those considered for the part of Napoleon Solo, according to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Book by Jon Heitland. Others included Harry Guardino and Robert Culp.

The role went to Robert Vaughn. At the time of the casting, Vaughn worked for executive producer Norman Felton on The Lieutenant.

Brown was even cast, briefly, as Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O. Former CBS executive Perry Lafferty, in an interview for the Archive of American Television, said Five-O creator Leonard Freeman had second thoughts about Brown.

CBS had Jack Lord under contract for a possible Western series. Rose Freeman, the widow of Leonard Freeman, said at a 1996 fan convention that Lord was cast on a Wednesday and started filming the next Monday. Here’s an excerpt from the Lafferty interview:

The THR obit on Brown emphasizes two important roles: Being the star of Here Come the Brides, a series that ran two years on ABC, and cast as a last-second replacement on an episode of the original Star Trek series.

Oswald the Rabbit makes his (sort of) MCU debut

Oswald the Rabbit, created by Walt Disney, circa 1927

Oswald the Rabbit, a character created by Walt Disney before Mickey Mouse, made his sort-of Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

It takes a bit of explaining. Let’s just say Oswald is shown on a television screen being watched by the imaginary kids of Wanda, the Scarlet Witch. There’s a later scene where the kids are watching the 1930s Disney version of Snow White.

Oswald (also known as Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit) originally was created in 1927 for Universal.

For decades, Disney (the company) wanted to get the rights to Oswald back. In the 2000s, Disney and Universal negotiated a swap: Universal would grant Disney the rights to Oswald. Universal (whose properties include the U.S. network NBC) would gain the services of sportscaster Al Michaels so the latter could work on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. (Early in Michaels’ career, he had a bit part in an episode of Hawaii Five-O.)

Yes, a cartoon character was swapped for the services of a human being. You can CLICK HERE for an account of the trade.

That’s how big business operates. Michaels this past season finished up his Sunday Night Football contract.

Nehemiah Persoff, veteran character actor, dies

Nehemiah Persoff in Mission: Impossible

Nehemiah Persoff, a character actor who excelled at playing villains, has died at 102, according to Deadline: Hollywood and other outlets.

Persoff, over a career lasting from the late 1940s to almost 2000, played:

–A Blofeld-like villain in the 1961 John Wayne Western The Comancheros;

–A secondary Thrush villain out to kill his former mentor Mandor (Jack Lord) in The Master’s Touch Affair in the final season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.;

–Three episodes of The Wild Wild West, including the show’s 1965 pilot;

–Two episodes of I Spy, three episodes of Mission: Impossible, an episode of It Takes a Thief, and seven episodes of Hawaii Five-O.

Persoff could play heavies in comedies as well as dramas.

For example, Persoff played gangster Little Bonaparte in 1959’s Some Like It Hot. The mobster was hearing impaired, wearing hearing aids. Little Bonaparte has fellow gangster Spats Columbo (George Raft) and his men gunned down at a party, with the killer coming out of a large cake.

A lawman played by Pat O’Brien enters asking what happened.

“There was something in that cake that didn’t agree with them,” Little Bonaparte replies.

The actor was versatile and didn’t only portray villains.

In a 1975 episode of Columbo, he played a nightclub owner who is blackmailing a former Nazi (Jack Cassidy). Persoff’s character is killed by Cassidy’s magician character during the middle of his act.

In the final episode of Gunsmoke, he played an immigrant father who pressures his eldest son (Robert Urich) to fight him as a rite of passage.

Dr. No’s 60th-anniversary conclusion: Legacy

Adapted from a 2012 post.

In evaluating the legacy of Dr. No as it approaches its 60th anniversary, start with the obvious: There’s still a 007 film series to talk about.

James Bond isn’t the biggest entertainment property in the world the way it was in 1965. But its longevity is unique.

The time that has passed includes more than a decade of enforced hiatus (a troublesome 1975 financial split between Eon co-founders Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman; a legal fight in the early 1990s between Broccoli and MGM; and MGM’s 2010 bankruptcy) disrupting production of the Bond movies.

Still, the Bond films soldier on. The 25th entry, No Time to Die, debuted in the fall of 2021.

The series turned actor Sean Connery into a major star. It made Roger Moore, known mostly as a television star, into a movie star. The same applies to Pierce Brosnan. It made Daniel Craig a star. Even George Lazenby (one movie) and Timothy Dalton (two) who had limited runs as 007 are identified with the series.

The films generated new fans of Ian Fleming’s hero to the point that the movie 007 long ago outsized the influence of his literary counterpart. Finally, the film 007 helped form an untold number of friendships among Bond fans who would have never met otherwise.

All of that began with a modestly budgeted film, without a big-name star, led by a director for hire, Terence Young, who’d be instrumental in developing the cinema version of Agent 007. Dr. No, filmed in Jamaica and at Pinewood Studios, made all that followed possible.

Fans may fuss and feud about which Bond they like best. This 007 film or that may be disparaged by some fans, praised by others. The series may get rebooted. Bond may get recast. The tone of the entries may vary greatly.

In the end, Bond continues. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. can’t say that; The Avengers, the John Steed variety which debuted the year before Dr. No, can’t say that; Matt Helm can’t say that. Jason Bourne, which influenced recent 007 movies, hasn’t been heard from since a 2016 film.

Many of those responsible for Dr. No aren’t around to take the bows.

They include:

–Producers Broccoli and Saltzman

–Director Young

–Screenwriter Richard Maibaum

–Editor Peter Hunt

–Production designer Ken Adam

–United Artists studio executive Arthur Krim, who greenlighted the project

–David V. Picker, another key UA executive, who was a Bond booster

–Joseph Wiseman, who played the title charater, the first film Bond villain

–Jack Lord, the first, and some fans say still the best, screen Felix Leiter, who’d become a major television star on Hawaii Five-O

–Art director Syd Cain

–Composer John Barry who orchestrated Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme and who would later define 007 film music.

–Nikki van der Zyl, who dubbed Ursula Andress in Dr. No and would work on other Bond films.

–Finally, Sean Connery, who brought the film Bond to life, passed away in 2020 at the age of 90.

That’s too bad but that’s what happens with the passage of time. The final product, though remains. It’s all summed up with these words:

James Bond will return. (Even with the ending of No Time to Die.)

Al Harrington, Five-O stalwart, dies at 85

Al Harrington in a 1996 special on Hawaii television

Al Harrington, who was a regular cast member on the original Hawaii Five-O series, died Sept 21 after suffering a stroke, according to Legacy.com.

Harrington played detective Ben Kokua during the fifth through seventh seasons. Harrington was a local entertainer who was hired by Leonard Freeman, the creator and executive producer of the series. Harrington had played criminals in earlier Five-O seasons.

According to Memories of Hawaii, a special that ran on Hawaiian television in 1996, Harrington ran afoul of star Jack Lord.

“He felt I was maybe too tall…I was too something,” Harrington said on the special. The actor said Freeman was committed to his choice.

However, Freeman died in 1974. “Then after Leonard died, the writing was on the wall, that I wasn’t going to be there much longer,” Harrington said.

The actor continued as an entertainer. He was cast in a recurring part in the 2010 Hawaii Five-0 (the O became a 0).

Harrington was born in December 1935 in American Samoa. He played running back for Stanford University, where he graduated in 1958. Harrington also performed Polynesian dancing on the side.

Harrington appeared in an episode of To Tell the Truth. He and two impostors fooled the four-person panel. Harrington also performed a sword dance.

Tarantino takes a shot (?) at Jack Lord

Soundtrack cover for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino is out with a novelization of his 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As a result, the writer-director has even more room to make comments about 1960s entertainment.

So far, I’m only a chapter into it and noticed a less-than-flattering reference to Jack Lord, the first screen Felix Leiter and the star of the original Hawaii Five-O (1968-80).

In Chapter One (“Call Me Marvin”), actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) chats with agent Marvin Schwarz.

“Stewart Granger was the single biggest prick I ever worked with,” Dalton says. “And I’ve worked with Jack Lord!”

What brought this on? Lord (1920-98) had a reputation for (depending on your perspective) being a perfectionist or….more than that.

A 1983 Starlog interview with Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum revealed that Lord was wanted back to reprise the Leiter role for Goldfinger. Except, Lord wanted a big raise and better billing. Cec Linder got the job instead.

Also, there was this passage from a 1971 TV Guide article (text is available on Mike Quigley’s Hawaii Five-O page) that had quotes from Ben Wood, entertainment editor for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

“My phone rang. It was the show’s press agent. He said that ‘management’ was ‘very upset’ over the piece. I had called Zulu and Kam Fong stars. They are not stars, I was told. Not even Jimmy MacArthur. They are all ‘featured players.’ There is only one star of Five-O, and that is Jack Lord. When I reported this conversation in print, a couple of CBS vice presidents (Perry Lafferty and Paul King) got into the act. ‘Management’ had said no such thing. They demanded a retraction, making it look as if I was guilty of inaccurate reporting. That was when we began to refer to ‘Jimmy MacArthur, Co-Star’.”

The original Five-O ended its run more than 40 year ago. But, occasionally, there are still references to Lord. In November 2020, the official George Lazenby Twitter feed suggested that the one-film Bond may have had an interesting experience.

Also in Chapter One, Rick Dalton also compliments director Paul Wendkos to Schwarz. Wendkos’ many credits include the 1968 Hawaii Five-O TV movie pilot.

#TBT: Together with Victoria Principal and Jack Lord in Singapore filming the Hawaii Five-O episode,  The Year of the Horse,  directed by Don Weis back in the late 1970s. Victoria was great while Jack was something else. Stay safe guys. Love George x pic.twitter.com/NS3i1Y27Fi

— George Lazenby (@lazenbyofficial) November 19, 2020

A pair of O’Briens

Hawaii Five-O logo in the main title; Liam O’Brien, brother of actor Edmond, was story consultant in the third season.

A major h/t to .@smilingcobra on Twitter. Sometimes you don’t get the connections. But it turns out actor Edmond O’Brien and his brother Liam O’Brien had connections to spy entertainment.

Edmond O’Brien (1915-85) had been a major player in movies such as White Heat, D.O.A., The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Fantastic Voyage. He was also a villain in a second-season episode of Mission: Impossible titled The Counterfeiter.

In the 21st century, less well known is Liam O’Brien, who died in 1996. His Los Angeles Times obituary described him as “a poet and cartoonist and then worked as a labor organizer before turning to writing plays.”

For the 1970-71 season of Hawaii Five-O, Liam O’Brien got the title of “story consultant.” In those days, a story consultant might be an in-house writer or he or she may have arranged free-lance writers to do scripts.

During his one season on Five-O, Liam O’Brien didn’t get any writing credits. Many of the episodes were written (or re-written) by scribes Jerry Ludwig and Eric Bercovici, either by themselves or as a team.

Given O’Brien’s story consultant title, he may well have been involved in assigning scripts or conducting story meetings during that Five-O season.

Later in his career, Liam O’Brien worked on series such as Police Story and Miami Vice.