Hi!


When the names of several guest star "I SPY" alumni were listed on the Courts Autograph Show list ...


http://www.network54.com/Forum/172251/message/1187784179/


I got to thinking that we haven't had a FAVORITE GUEST STAR POLL in a long time.

One the things that made "I SPY" such a stand-out in quality of production was the stellar and varied and extremely talented guest stars that appeared each week - from seasoned character actors to well-known celebrities - all added to and enhanced and enriched the quality of the series.

I (as you can imagine) have many "favorite" guest stars - Ken Tobey, Alan Oppenheimer, Harold J. Stone, Laura Devon, France Nuyen, etc., etc. ) but I'll start with RICHARD GARLAND - a.k.a. "John Irving" .... (and no, no, Tatia did not have him killed - really - I was just in the powder room in that Tokyo restaurant as Kelly said - really! ) I liked John Irving and Richard Garland a great deal.





He appeared with Culp earlier in some TRACKDOWNS - and in lots of westerns, and also had an interesting career with some "eclectic" films like the wonderful B-movie Roger Corman classics "Attack of the Crab People" and "The Undead."







(... and yes, that's Russell Johnson in the movie also (the Professor on "Gilligan's Island) ... who plays a scientist stranded on a strange island along with several odd characters (and a really BIG crab) who keeps trying to make a radio out of spare parts ... sound familiar??)

Mr. Garland also appeared in one of my favorite "Zane Grey Theater" episodes "The Morning Incident," co-starring alongside Bob and Martha Hyer. All the cast were really spectacular in this rather adult western story (for its day) about an extremely charming (though sociopathic killer), Shad Hudson, who seeks refuge in the barn of a young woman. Culp added these wonderful nuances to his performance, as the killer and lover. Martha Hyer was perfect as the dreamy farm girl yearning for adventure in her life. And Richard Garland was excellent as her upright and long suffering fiancé. For a half-hour TV western of the early 60s, it was very, very well done.











For anyone who would like to read a more detail synopsis, check out Aunty Alta's delightful review of "Morning Incident."

http://www.network54.com/Forum/172251/message/1014832401/Morning+Incident


I also saw Mr. Garland in the MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE episode called "The Glass Cage." At first I did not recognize the prisoner being tortured. But I knew it was someone who looked really, really familiar. He only spoke once in the episode (his character was refusing to speak) and his voice made me realize who it was. This episode was made very close to the time of his death. He was very thin and gaunt, but as riveting as always - there was always a very special charm about him.

I recently discovered that he was once married to "Beverly Garland" (who is also a TRACKDOWN guest star alumni. She starred in the episode "Hard Lines" that featured James Coburn and DeForest Kelley) and is best known as the Mom on "My Three Sons".... I had never associated them together. Love those connections ....


O.K. out there, now it's your turn .... let's hear about some of your favorite "I SPY" guest stars!!


As always,

Tatia

~~~~

I’m sorry to deviate a little from your theme Tatia, but as you noted in your wonderful celebration of Richard Garland, he was married to Beverly Garland, and she has had an interesting career. They were married only from 1951 to 1953, but by 1953 Beverly’s career was beginning to take off so it probably wasn’t practical for her to return to her original name of Beverly Fessenden.



She has a huge number of credits, most of them in TV (often as someone’s mother), but in the fifties she was in a lot of movies.

Curucu, Beast of the Amazon



The Alligator People



And (no kidding) Naked Paradise



She starred in the first American TV series featuring a female protagonist. The show was Decoy and she played a police woman.



She married Filmore Crank in 1959. He was a land developer and apparently named hotels after her. He died in 1999 and Beverly currently operates the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood.

http://www.beverlygarland.com/



As far as I can determine, she never appeared with Bill Cosby. Other than the Trackdown episode you noted, she may have the distinction of being the only woman to appear with Robert Culp on a game show. She was a regular for a time on Mike Stokey’s Pantomime Quiz.



She is shown above with her fellow “home team” members Hans Conried, Sebatian Cabot and Ross Martin. They faced off against members of the PT-109 cast (Robert Culp, James Gregory, Ty Hardin, and Grant Williams) on 20 May 1963.

I will try and return with something featuring a proper I Spy guest star.

And finally Tatia, I’ve always believed you were in that Tokyo restaurant powder room when poor Mr. Irving met his demise.

Jimmy

There were so many amazing guest stars on I Spy, but I have to say Alan Oppenheimer's turn as Col. Ivan Benkovsky is just my favorite. He fits perfectly into the sometimes serious, sometimes silly tone of the show. One of my favorite silly scenes is in "A Gift from Alexander" when Benkovsky insists the Leningrad Losers, not the Philadelphia Phillies, won the third game of the World Series in 1936. His character also nicely captures the blurry lines between friend/foe and professional/personal that seem such a part of the spy business. I love In "Blackout", how he spends most of the episode threatening to turn Kelly in for the murder of ballerina Zili Markova, yet when all is resovled, he wants to go to the movies with Kelly and Scotty. Even though he's kind of (sometimes) a bad guy, he's just a cutie!

Cate

Before this thread migrates to the bottom of the page and then off the edge to become shrouded in antiquity, I wanted to mention at least one I Spy guest star. I’m quite fond of Antoinette Bower as Shelby Clavell in her too few appearances on I Spy. (Were there really only two--Crusade to Limbo and Return to Glory?) Shelby, the department factotum, had a great rapport with Kelly and Scotty. I could sit and watch her banter with Kelly and Scotty over “glass pants” and per diem unto the next millennium. She had her job to do, and wouldn’t budge an inch when it came to department policy, and yet she also was clearly very fond of them. In one of the episodes Kelly is trying to get her to go out with him, and I think does succeed at last, though you get the feeling that Shelby isn’t overly susceptible to Kelly’s charms, which counts for her.

I can’t find any photos of Antoinette as Shelby. Her biggest claim to pop culture superstardom is probably her Star Trek appearance in Catspaw as Sylvia.



Here is a more recent picture of Antoinette.



Barbara Luna has a web site with a number of photos she took with other Star Trek folks (“babes” and otherwise). While the theme is Star Trek many of the people involved were also I Spy “babes” (and otherwise). They include Antoinette Bower, Joanne Linville, France Nuyen and Michael Forrest. I guess Michael Forrest is the “otherwise”. I was going to grab the relevant photos and put them here, but I couldn’t, so instead here is the link to the entire page.

http://www.barbaraluna.com/friends1.html

Jimmy

Before this thread vanishes off the page, there’s just enough room for me to say that my favorite guest star has to be the courtly and gracious Boris Karloff.



Culp and Cosby, who both grew up cinema addicts, must have been thrilled to the bone to work with a screen legend of his stature. And Marc and Linda’s informative book tells us that Karloff was delighted to be remembered and asked on the show.

Regards—

Those are a few of my favorites, although there were so many! I think Reta Shaw is one of those great character actresses who has incredible presence, and I loved the casting of her as an agent. I am so impressed by the way she carries herself and steals every scene she's in. The same with Dorothy Lamour being cast as an agent, and their superior no less. Considering how HUGE a star she was back in the day, I think it's great that they gave her a juicy role like that on I Spy - no doubt someone on the show must have had a big crush on her at one time. And I thought Mr. Leonard was perfect in the role of Sorgi. It's interesting to consider the dynamic that went on with C&C acting in scenes with their own boss

Becca