Best actor, any Twilight Zone episode(s)

[Bossy Monkey]

I think it has to be Jack Klugman. Off the top of my head, I remember the one where he was a drunken trumpeter who died, met archangel Gabriel and got to come back; the one where he was a drunken loser who died to save his son Pip in Vietnam (hmm, a theme is developing here); the one where he was a pool hustler who played Jonathan Winters to become God's pool shark (I'm not making this up); and the one where he and his entire crew of astronauts die but he's too determined to let them admit it. Apparently, whenever Rod needed a drunk who died, Jack got the call, and always gave standout performances, except maybe the last one above where he didn't get to be drunk.

Of the performers on the show who were or would become well-known, there's... Agnes Moorehead, fighting tiny space invaders (episode is just too unpleasant for me, but I grasp that she did a great job); Robert Redford as Mr. Death; Robert Duvall as the extremely creepy young fellow in love with a tiny doll in a museum; Orson Bean as zither loving Mr. Bevis; Ed Wynn as the pitchman giving the pitch for the angels (I dare you not to cry); Art Carney as the DTs department store Santa; Shatner at 30,000 feet and in a diner believing in a devilish fortune-telling machine; Telly Savalas taking on Talking Tina and losing; Jack Warden as the exile on the asteroid who falls in love with a robot who looks a lot like Jean Marsh; etc., etc., etc. It's amazing what kind of talent you can attract with good writing. Maybe somebody in the tv industry ought to try that today.

Worst, I think, is James Best, who played all the hillbillies in the Earl Hamner, Jr penned episodes. Apparently he grew up to be Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on "The Dukes of Hazzard." Might have guessed.

Ok, whadda you think?

[BrklynLiberal]

Gosh, you covered just about everyone I could think of, even Robert

Redford as Death.

EDIT:Burgess Meredith. End of the world. He can finally read all his beloved books. He steps on his glasses.

Who played in the episode about the dept store mannequins who can each come to life for one day?

The rich, little, ignored kids who swim to the bottom of a swimming pool to a nice happy land.

Was "Kick the Can" a Twilight Zone? Where the Senior Citizens become little kids or was that one of those other SciFi shows?

[blueroses]

3. Johnathan Winters

Def one of the coolest episodes.

[mtnester]

5. That would be a great episode..

I love that many of his plot lines are based on strict irony

[pamela]

14. Anne Francis was the mannequin, I think.

"Kick the can" was a twilight zone episode but I don't remember who starred in it. I don't know if that was the name of the episode.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. "To Serve Man" Martin Landau

Can't believe I almost forgot that one.

[pamela]

32. "It's a cookbook!"

Lol. I loved that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Department store mannequins: Anne Francis

The ignored little kids: one of them was Mary Badham, who played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Yes!! thank you. thank you.

[Bossy Monkey]

28. "Kick the Can" was indeed a Twilight Zone episode. A good 'un

[maveric]

40. Elizabeth Montgomery and either Redford or Cliff Robertson, after WWIII

they are the last two survivors of a nuclear war but were from opposing sides in the war.

Burgess Meredith as the avid reader who was henpecked by his wife for reading too much. Some kind of a disaster occured and he was the last man left on earth in a huge library but his thick glasses were broken.

[mtnester]

1. Agnes Moorehead, Episode "Invaders"

http://tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-237/epid-12635/

[WI_DEM]

6. that was her favorite television performance

she loved to show it at her acting school to her students to convey a performance given in pantomime.

[mtnester]

9. I did not know that...it makes the episode even more interesting

thanks for the trivia...my hubby will smile when I pass it along, as he loved that episode too...althought his favorite is the Burgess Meredith episode...stepping on glasses.

[Bossy Monkey]

27. I'm so embarrassed that I forgot Burgess Meredith, in so many and so great

in all of them

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. nevermind

[Orsino]

4. Burgess Meredith: "Time Enough at Last" n/t

Small nit-pick: Klugman didn't die before or after meeting Gabriel.

Another small nit-pick: James Best is actually magnificent in all his TZ appearances. He was wasted in Hazzard County.

[davidinalameda]

20. I agree with Burgess Meredith

[mac56]

36. One more vote for Burgess Meredith.

nm

[WI_DEM]

7. Dick York in "A Penny for Your Thoughts"

one of the best and funniest TZ.

[CanuckAmok]

41. which one was shot as a silent comedy short with a time machine?

and that was someone who went on to greater fame, wasn't it?

[Bossy Monkey]

46. Buster Keaton? I think most of his fame was behind him at that point

unless you count Frankie and Annette movies. But yeah, he certainly was well-known, and did a great job in the episode. http://entertainment.msn.com/Movies/Movie.aspx?m=157447

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Didn't Earl Hammner Jr end up writing "The Waltons"?

[Bossy Monkey]

29. And narrating. That was he n/t

[pamela]

10. Burgess Merideth...

as the guy who loved to read, survived an atomic bomb and broke his glasses. Billy Mummy as Little Anthony-"He was a BAD MAN so I put his BAD FACE on a jack-in-the-box." (I wish people into the cornfield all the time but it doesn't work. Bummer.) Donna Douglas in "Eye of the Beholder." The guy in "Willoughby"-I don't know his name but I love that episode. Claude Akin in the episode where the electricity goes out.

[BrklynLiberal]

12. Willoughby actor was Joseph Cotton

[WI_DEM]

16. nope that is James Daly, Tyne Daly's father

who played in "A Stop at Willoughby"

[BrklynLiberal]

18. You are absolutely right!!!!!!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. Jack Weston

He starred in the episode "The Bard" about a failing writer who conjures up Shakespeare. He was also in one of my favorite Twlight Zone episodes, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" (on the extreme left in the photo). I thought he was an under-rated actor.

[BrklynLiberal]

13. Was just trying to think of the name of that one...

EDIT: The actor on the far right was also in alot of TZ's too.

[hyphenate]

45. That's Claude Akins nm

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Twilight Zone episode finder....

http://www.twilightzone.org/index2.html

[Worst Username Ever]

22. William Shatner LOL

The original "Nightmare at 20,000 feet," later reprised in the movie by Johnathan Lithgow.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

23. And a very young and beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery

in an episode entitled "Two", along with Charles Bronson. She uttered only one word of dialogue but nonetheless gave a very effective performance.

[WI_DEM]

25. well, the Bewitched actors are well represented on this thread.

[terrya]

24. Billy Mumy..."It's a GOOD LIfe"

Seriously. The kid was good in that episode. :-)

[Bossy Monkey]

30. Also as little Beely, whose Grandma gave him a toy phone...

She was probably the one who taught him how to wish people into cornfields.

I guess everybody knows that a couple of years ago when the Twilight Zone was briefly revived, a grownup Bill Mumy played the same kid as an adult with a daughter who also has uh, socialization problems.

[Robeson]

42. Good Call.....

..:thumbsup:

[mcscajun]

26. Burgess Meredith: An Actor in Four Parts

Henry Bemis - "Time Enough at Last" - My Absolute Favorite TZ Episode
Luther Dingle - "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"
Romney Wordsworth - "The Obsolete Man" - an outstanding piece of writing
Mr. Smith (the Devil) - "Printer's Devil"

[Gannon Man Date]

31. Burgess Meredith

The one where he punches his wife out the window, after watching it on TV.

To this day, whenever I hear "Yonkers", I think of that episode.

[Bossy Monkey]

33. I think you're thinking of William Demarest

but he's good, too: http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-237/epid-12730

[mcscajun]

34. That was a good one, but that was William Demarest

titled: "What's In The Box?"

[Gannon Man Date]

35. My mistake

Demarest played Uncle Charlie in My Three Sons, didn't he?

I can see how I would mix them up.

[mcscajun]

38. He sure did.

:)

[peekaloo]

37. Ed Wynn in "One For The Angels". I agree with that one.

:cry:

[Bossy Monkey]

39. What say you, insomniacs and left coastians? n/t

[enigmatic]

43. "Shadow Play"

Dennis Weaver was shockingly intense in this role, and it reminded me of a old "Quiet Please" radio show episode called "Inquest":

http://tzone.the-croc.com/tzeplist/shadow.html

[hyphenate]

44. Yep--

Just reading the title made me think of Jack Klugman first (another Dem--yay!) but also Burgess Meredith was superb. For a lot of actors, TZ was a major starting point in their acting careers.