Actors who got their "start" on Twilight Zone

Cafe Society
1

It might not have been their very first paid acting experience, but it seems that quite a few actors and actresses appeared on Twilight Zone before they became famous. Somehow Rod Serling seemed to have an ability to cast people who would later become famous in TV and movies later in their careers.

I’ve been watching a few episodes on the New Years Twilight Zone marathon and so far I’ve seen William Shatner (Twice) Nick of Time and Nightmare at 20,000’. Robert Redford in Nothing in the Dark. William Windom in *Five Characters in Search *of an Exit.

Any others?

2

I think the list would be shorter if you stuck to the ones who didn’t appear. :wink:

3

Bill Bixby was in the episode “The Thirty Fathom Grave”. Sadly, Bill did not turn into Lou Ferigno during the episode.

4

Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jean Marsh, Billy Mumy, all appeared on The Twilight Zone early in their careers.

5

Here’s a list of all actors who appeared in TZ.

Impressive.

6

Earl Holliman was in the very first TZ episode.

7

This one shocked me:
*
Russell David Johnson 11/10/24-*

The only surviving male cast member of Gilligan’s Island.

8

According to Wikipedia, Tina Louise and Dawn Wells are still alive.
~VOW

9

Leonard Nimoy and Jack Klugman have also starred in TZ. Burgess Meredith starred in a LOT of TZ episodes!
~VOW

10

Them’s is female. :wink:

11

Wow, I thought he was dead.

12

Ed Wynn was in ep 2, but I think he was pretty well established as a character actor by then.

13

In Dawn Wells’ case, VERY female.

(Excuses self for a few minutes to go, er, “meditate” …)

14

Two Star Trek actors that haven’t been mentioned yet are James Doohan and George Takei.

One of Richard Kiel’'s earliest roles was playing the Kanamit in the well known episode To Serve Man.

15

The George Takei TZ episode is on YouTube. Certainly one I hadn’t seen before and I grew up watching TZ. I wonder if it ever aired. It had a few scenes that some might say are racist. I doubt it would be part of any present day TZ marathon.

16

I just did an IMDB search for actors common to Twilight Zone and To Kill A Mockingbird (because in the past two days I’ve seen the William Windom episode as well as the one with Mary Badham as “Sport” and Collin Wilcox Patton, who played Mayella Ewell) and also turned up Robert Duvall, Frank Overton, and a few others. I’ve never seen the Robert Duvall episode, I don’t think.

17

It was an Anthology show with 6 seasons worth of episodes. Nearly every working actor from that era probably played something on there.

18

Shatner was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents before he was on Twilight Zone, IIRC (“The Glas Eye”). Both he and Niomy both appeared on The Outer Limits, as well.
NBecause he appeared in so many Twilight Zone episodes, John Landis had Burgess Meredith provide the opening narration for Twilight Zone — The Movie.
Jack Klugman was in three different episodes, IIRC. Jonathan Winters, Art Carney (clearly well known by them), Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds.
Russel Johnson played a scientist in one episode (and had already played scientists in This Island Earth and Attack of the Crab Mopnsters). The man was DOOMED to play The Professor on Gilligan’s Island.

19

Could it just be that most lead/support-capable actors working in Hollywood at the time did a stint on TZ?

20

If anyone would obsess enough to produce a site cataloguing all the episodes on INSIGHT (dubbed a “Catholic Twilight Zone”), a list of actors would be as long & have a lot of overlaps with TZ, I bet.