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The Twilight Zone was more than just a science fiction television show. It was theater that made you think, a showcase for Rod Serling’s vision for television, and it was a proving ground for talented but relatively unknown actors, like William Shatner.
The Twilight Zone featured some of Hollywood’s most famous faces… or at least faces that would eventually become famous. Looking back at the original series and seeing such star power, most of whom were just budding actors and actresses at the time, is actually quite interesting. Many of these celebrities may not be familiar to younger readers. However, others should certainly be easily recognizable. One such celeb was William Shatner (a man synonymous with sci-fi) who six years prior to “boldly going where no man had gone before” appeared as a newlywed obsessed with a small diner’s spooky fortune-telling machine.
Shatner, as we all know, went on to star in another classic Twilight Zone episode entitled Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, where he played a man slowly driven insane by a creature only he was able to see prancing about on the wing of his plane.
Read about more Twilight Zone actors who went on to stardom afterward, and other reasons that made The Twilight Zone a masterpiece. Link
Mental_floss is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone in their own way, by bringing trivia about the show. For example, great acting wasn’t exactly a priority during filming of the episodes.
Interestingly enough, many of the actors in these pieces, when interviewed decades after the fact, confessed that they weren’t particularly proud of their performances. The Twilight Zone had a budget, just like any other series, and often the bulk of the money per episode had to be spent on sets and special effects. There was no luxury of multiple retakes until the actor felt just right about a particular scene. A sub-par performance wasn’t a matter of concern in most episodic television of that era, but, as William Shatner later mentioned in an interview, at that time a Twilight Zone appearance was just another job – no one ever suspected that these episodes would be aired over and over (and over!) again for years to come.
There’s more about your favorite episodes and about host Rod Serling. Link
