By David Weiner
Back when I was executive editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine in 2015, I sat down with Martin Landau on the 40th anniversary of the debut of SPACE: 1999. What I thought was going to be a simple, 30-minute interview at his agent’s office turned into a marathon chat that lasted four hours. Yep, four hours. The legend was in the mood to talk.
During that time, our discussion turned into what felt like a bravura, one-man show for a one-person audience. The now late, great Oscar winner covered a lot of ground. He detailed the various backroom battles and creative brilliance behind the scenes of Gerry Anderson’s celebrated mid-’70s Sci-Fi series. He talked about transforming into Bela Lugosi in ED WOOD (complete with spot-on impressions of Lugosi and Boris Karloff) for Tim Burton; about working with Alfred Hitchcock on NORTH BY NORTHWEST (again with a hilarious spot-on impression of Hitch); about teaching the craft of acting, and certain well-known stars who were his students that “couldn’t act”; his career highs, his career lows, his regrets, his beloved family — and he shared a number of racy tales that he asked to be off the record, but enjoyed telling me just for my reaction. It was an unexpected and priceless sit-down.
Perhaps one day I’ll transcribe more publishable nuggets of our amazing interview, specifically about ED WOOD. But for now, I’ll focus on SPACE: 1999 with the piece I wrote for Famous Monsters of Filmland issue #283, which hit newsstands in December of 2015:
The concept was killer and timely: A high-tech TV series set a quarter century in the future in which mankind has colonized the moon. Earth’s radioactive waste disposal on the far side of the moon has become volatile, and a flashpoint trigger explodes the stockpile, sending the sphere hurtling into the abyss. Careening through space, the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha must find a new, habitable planet to settle on before it’s too late.
Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson of THUNDERBIRDS and “Supermarionation” fame, the couple’s live-action show ran for only two 24-episode seasons, both very different in tone, and remains a fan favorite and key player in Sci-Fi TV lore. Martin Landau headlined as the intrepid Commander Koenig of Moonbase Alpha. His real-life wife Barbara Bain co-starred as the settlement’s Chief Medical Officer Helena Russell. Barry Morse rounded out the show’s top trio as Professor Victor Bergman, scientific advisor and ethical conscience to Koenig.
While Landau first made his mark on the Sci-Fi world with SPACE: 1999, his career could have taken a decidedly different path had he accepted Gene Roddenberry’s earlier offer to join the cast of that “wagon train to the stars,” STAR TREK. “I was offered Spock first,” muses Landau, who was good friends with “Lenny” Nimoy, and worked in adjacent soundstages at the Desilu lot, now known as Paramount Pictures. “We were good friends, and he replaced me on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. … I just didn’t want to do STAR TREK. I didn’t want to play an emotionless character. It would’ve killed me.” He pauses, then offers, “I loved the ears.”
Gerry Anderson was coming off the solid first season of his live-action show UFO and looking to do a variation on the second season to draw more viewers, when he was told by TV mogul Lew Grade that ratings had slumped and the show was cancelled. A significant amount of production costs had been invested in UFO’s second season, so Anderson suggested “switching things around and making something different” with a new title, premise and cast. “And that’s how SPACE: 1999 was born.”
While it was a British television show, an American star was required to secure the deal. Landau and Bain were hot properties due to the runaway success of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, and Anderson approached the couple to pitch the project. “I loved the idea,” says Landau. “Three hundred people hurtling through space, in the future, unable to control their trajectory, unable to have any more children because our hydroponic unit could just support [our current population], looking for a habitable planet. … I always felt with science fiction you could say things that you couldn’t say in contemporary context.”
Inspired by the opportunity to draw parallels of world crises and pollution/ecological issues, Landau was hooked. “And then I insisted that Barbara be added to the cast,” he recalls. “I said, ‘You’ve got to have a leading lady,’ and we’re moving to England with our kids. I would like the family to be together, and I would like to work with Barbara again.’ It was not common for husbands and wives to do a television series. And they said, ‘OK, there’s going to be a medical officer, and she can be it.’ And that’s how it happened.”
SPACE: 1999 was notable for Keith Wilson’s thoughtful Alpha production design and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY alum Brian Johnson’s incredibly detailed miniature work (personal note: as a seven year old watching the show, I was convinced that they filmed it all on the moon!). There was more than a hint of influence from ODYSSEY in all corners of the show’s look and feel, from the orange spacesuits to the “everyday work environment” look of the Main Mission “bridge” of Moonbase Alpha.
But the show’s design still triumphed, especially where the hardware was concerned: The Eagle transports, the modular layout of Moonbase Alpha, the angular Stun Guns, and the Comlocks (communicator/locking devices) all were enviable assets to SPACE: 1999. “The Eagle looked like the right progression in terms of years; they looked liked they belonged in 1999,” opines Landau. “They didn’t look like something from BUCK ROGERS in the ‘30s, or FLASH GORDON.”
The uniforms were also very original. While they may look a bit too much like pajamas in retrospect, there was a clever logic to the color allocation: “Rudi Gernreich developed those costumes,” recalls Landau. “Barbara knew Rudy; he had made a name for himself with topless bathing suits. … The great thing was that the sleeve was colored. I had the only charcoal gray, the astronauts had yellow, the people who worked at Main Mission had red. You could tell someone’s rank from a great distance. I always felt with the army, you had to get up close to see what rank somebody is. … But [Gernreich’s design] was very innovative, because at first glance you knew exactly where someone belonged.”
The show was also a magnet for top-notch British guest stars — several who would go on to pivotal roles in STAR WARS and FLASH GORDON — and saw a parade of recognizable names including Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Joan Collins, Ian McShane, Sarah Douglas, David Powse, Julian Glover, and Brian Blessed.
In 1973, Landau, Bain and their family relocated across the pond and settled into the daily grind of creating a television show. With the show’s huge budget breaking records as the most expensive to date for a broadcast series, the stakes were high, and the pressure-cooker environment was not helped by above-the-line friction as Landau went the extra mile to sculpt scripts after long shoot days and rework story beats to be more logical. “Sylvia Anderson never liked us,” says Landau frankly. “She had Robert Culp and other people in mind — [she thought] if you’re going to use someone in America, he’s got to be more of a leading man and less a character actor. … I knew that if I spoke too loudly, I’d be a nasty American, a colonist. The troublesome Americans — the mantle was there if we wanted to accept it and take it. So I tried my damnedest to be as cordial as I could be, and yet I was trying to protect the series. … None of the cast members knew that I was complaining quietly behind the scenes. The writers appreciated what I was doing, because they knew how hard we worked. We didn’t have to do this, but we did it because we wanted the show to be as good as it could be.”
Pondering those behind-the-scenes battles, Landau simply offers, “Stuff I liked, I liked a lot. And stuff I didn’t, I didn’t.” The introspective actor has a particular fondness for “The Black Sun” episode, in which Commander Koenig and Professor Bergman find themselves braving almost certain death as the moon travels through a black hole — where they come face-to-face with a female God. “I loved those ideas. I felt they were progressive ideas, interesting ideas,” smiles Landau. “Barry and I opening a whole bottle of brandy, hundreds of years old, and toasting to no future, and getting through that black hole, and hearing God’s voice, which is a female voice. (laughs) All of it was like, wow! … It was a chance to play.”
Landau reports that despite the at-times breakneck pace, camaraderie on set was upbeat: “Nick Tate and I became good pals. Prentis Hancock, and Barry, I loved them.” Working with wife Barbara on yet another TV series was also a positive experience: “We enjoyed working together. She was a hard-working actress and very smart.” He adds of the perceived novelty of having a married Hollywood couple star together in a major TV show, “I never thought of it as a package deal. … But the fact that we were able to negotiate that, in a business that doesn’t necessarily care about a family being together, was kind of stupendous at the time. … We did work together more than most people get a chance to — one of the reasons being we wanted to — and we wanted to keep the family together.”
Landau and Bain’s marriage lasted more than 35 years until they divorced in 1993. “The best laid plans of mice and men, as they say,” reflects Landau. “I tend not to talk too much about our break-up, but we had some great years together. Fruitful years together. Successful years together. And enjoyable years together. It was a terrific relationship, but time changes things.”
Taking its cue from STAR TREK and UFO, the producers of SPACE: 1999 made a concerted effort to merchandise the show to kids. Dinky Toys created die-cast Eagles, while Mattel delivered a Moonbase Alpha “playset” for its trio of action figures (Koenig, Russell, and Bergman), plus a massive Eagle One spaceship that measured two and a half feet long.
Episodes were novelized, Charlton Comics expanded the adventures, and water gun rack toys sported the show’s unique title logo. “I have an action figure, and now my granddaughter who’s six years old plays with it. It sort of looks like me,” says Landau with a grin, play-acting the rigid arm motion that only a five-point-articulated figure can provide. “I had two of them, now I have one left. I don’t know what happened to it. Someone swiped it!”
There were also LP records, coloring books, lunch boxes, and much more. Landau beams, “Tim Burton asked me to sign his SPACE: 1999 lunch box.”
Despite the excitement, hype and promotion surrounding the show, the first season of SPACE: 1999 was met with a mixed response from critics. Many praised the intellectual, philosophical and metaphysical nature of the individual episodes, not to mention the stellar special effects, but others criticized the show for being too plodding, the acting too wooden, and select details scientifically inaccurate. “A lot of it was misunderstood because critics are critics,” says Landau. “You’re sticking your neck out. People either get it or they don’t, and if they don’t, they won’t.” Often comparing his show to the enviable success of STAR TREK (which was a syndicated success, subsequent to the show’s cancellation after a three-year run), he adds, ”Trekkies, Trekkers — call them what you will — never accepted SPACE: 1999 in the way that I wanted them to.”
In an effort to quicken the pace and bring more action to the proceedings, STAR TREK and THE WILD WILD WEST producer Fred Freiberger was hired to whip the show into shape. That meant a new theme song (Barry Gray’s great percussive, electric guitar-driven intro made way for the heavy synthesizer/horn balance of Derek Wadsworth’s second-season theme — both very catchy in different ways), new characters, adding more color to the wardrobe — and dropping Barry Morse.
Catherine Schell’s metamorph Maya was added as a main character, allowing for more kiddie-oriented aliens, animals and “monster of the week” opportunities — much to the chagrin of Landau: “The thing that was important in the first season was we were searching for a place to live — a passing planet that was compatible to our needs — and that was lost in the second season. It was a circumstance of fate that knocked us out of orbit. And here we are, pioneers hurtling through space at a ridiculous amount of speed, passing planets — can we breathe here, can we live here, can we eat here, is there other animal life? … I was very aware of what Koenig had to do in the first season. The second season, a lot of that was forfeited because Freddy had ridiculous storylines with Catherine turning into god knows what — leopards and sometimes ridiculous things that were not made well; a bunch of rubber monsters.”
He continues, “There were things that Koenig was asked to do that I thought was pre-emptive. [Freddie] said, ‘No one’ll pay attention.’ And I said, ‘Are you kidding?!? The great thing about this is we don’t attack people. We get attacked, and then we retaliate if we can.’ … He said, ‘Who’ll know?’ I said, ’The same people who watched it the week before will know!’ We hoped to get a loyal following, and they have to understand this character that has to be consistent, and you’re [customizing him to] this particular story. As a result, you’re selling the character down the river. I can’t possibly justify this as the guy I was last week. It’s a different guy!’ He said, ‘You’re making it very difficult.’ I said, ‘No I’m not. We’re doing a series. It’s not like this is an anthology show. If this was an anthology, I’d be happy to change every week, but it’s not.’ … People are inviting us into their living room because we’re friends of theirs, and you can’t just arbitrarily change this guy every week because you’re telling a story.’” Landau adds, “And yet, [Fred and I] got along well. It was more of a constant battle than it should have been.” He then clarifies, “It wasn’t a battle. It was a conversation.”
Despite the ups and downs, a third season was intended for SPACE: 1999, but it came down to budget allocation, and ITC Entertainment producer Lew Grade needed the money to market his feature films: “His advertising budget of the pictures that he made was virtually the budget for a third season, and we didn’t have that third season because he went into ‘American success movie mode.’ You know, shit happens.”
Asked what he envisioned that third season to be like, Landau responds, “I think a third season would have been different again. I think the Andersons, or Gerry and Lew, would have made more money out of the third season with a better syndication package. I’d have gone back to the first season — it was a much more philosophical show with more patience.”
Reflecting on the experience of making SPACE: 1999 as a whole, Landau smiles, “I loved doing it. I had fun doing it. Stunts, pretty girls, and guest stars. All of it. … It was never about our egos. It was about making a decent show for the world. … I think life is an adventure. I’ve often been misunderstood, but that’s okay. Doing what I do, you are subject to criticism. I know a lot of people aren’t going to like what I do. That’s okay.”
After moving on from SPACE: 1999 in the late ‘70s, Landau’s career trajectory faltered from a critical standpoint, but he kept busy on the big screen. The next time we saw him on television, it was once again opposite Barbara Bain for none other than THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS ON GILLIGAN’S ISLAND in 1981.
Rebounding a few years later with his spirited turn in Francis Ford Coppola’s TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM, the former Hitchcock NORTH BY NORTHWEST baddie found his footing and became an Oscar favorite, nabbing a Best Supporting Actor nod for that performance. He was nominated again for his amazingly nuanced embodiment of Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS — and then finally won the Best Supporting Actor statuette in 1995 for his incredible portrayal of troubled DRACULA legend Bela Lugosi in ED WOOD.
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