Martin Landau R.I.P.
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John Johnson
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Martin Landau R.I.P.
London. Greatest City in the world.
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Paul MacLean
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Re: Martin Landau R.I.P.
Martin Landau was a magnificent actor who never got the recognition -- or opportunities -- he deserved.
Despite promising supporting work in North By Northwest and Cleopatra, he never graduated to leading roles in films, which is a shame. Perhaps he looked "too ethnic" for the Hollywood of the time, I don't know.
I was never a Mission Impossible watcher, but love Space: 1999 as a kid, and Landau's work in that series was first-rate, and one of my first introductions to great acting. Sadly his career floundered in late 70s and early 80s (one of the lowest points being his taking a role in The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island!).
Happily, by the late 80s, Francis Coppola recognized Landau's extraordinary gifts and offered him the role of Abe Karatz in Tucker: Man And His Dreams (which would earn Landau an well-deserved Academy Award nomination). A year later Woody Allen followed suit by offering Landau a leading role in Crimes and Misdemeanors -- a film I rate as Allen's finest work, and Landau's best performance (which earned him a second nomination). His tremendously entertaining portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood would of course finally win him that long-overdue Oscar.
Although true stardom always eluded him, I am happy for the more substantial roles Landau was given late in his career, and the overdue recognition he finally received.
Despite promising supporting work in North By Northwest and Cleopatra, he never graduated to leading roles in films, which is a shame. Perhaps he looked "too ethnic" for the Hollywood of the time, I don't know.
I was never a Mission Impossible watcher, but love Space: 1999 as a kid, and Landau's work in that series was first-rate, and one of my first introductions to great acting. Sadly his career floundered in late 70s and early 80s (one of the lowest points being his taking a role in The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island!).
Happily, by the late 80s, Francis Coppola recognized Landau's extraordinary gifts and offered him the role of Abe Karatz in Tucker: Man And His Dreams (which would earn Landau an well-deserved Academy Award nomination). A year later Woody Allen followed suit by offering Landau a leading role in Crimes and Misdemeanors -- a film I rate as Allen's finest work, and Landau's best performance (which earned him a second nomination). His tremendously entertaining portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood would of course finally win him that long-overdue Oscar.
Although true stardom always eluded him, I am happy for the more substantial roles Landau was given late in his career, and the overdue recognition he finally received.
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Eric Paddon
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Re: Martin Landau R.I.P.
Landau's exit from "Mission: Impossible" was what basically caused his career to tank in the US for a long while because it gave him a reputation for being difficult. The only reason he got "Space 1999" was because it was British produced (the same stigma had impacted Barbara Bain too as she basically had few roles after her simultaneous leaving MI).
Post-Space 1999 he had some really awful parts. The over-the-top general in "Meteor". A "Hotel" guest shot as a raving KKK style white supremacist. It was pretty pathetic until he got his film turnaround.
Post-Space 1999 he had some really awful parts. The over-the-top general in "Meteor". A "Hotel" guest shot as a raving KKK style white supremacist. It was pretty pathetic until he got his film turnaround.
Re: Martin Landau R.I.P.
Paul, agree with Crimes and Misdemeanors...his performance in that should have won him an Oscar, in my opinion. His performance as Judah was haunting and chilling - amazing job. I always loved his performance as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood as well. RIP.
Re: Martin Landau R.I.P.
Martin Landau was always a good supporting character player, particularly strong in roles like he had in Crimes & Misdemeanors (although this one approached more of a leading capacity) and Ed Wood.
He was never particularly good on Space: 1999 in either season, many times wildly overplaying his scenes in a manner that could provoke unintentional laughter. I'm glad he got the revitalization he did in the latter 80s and early 90s so he could end his career on a positive note and actually get an Oscar to cap it off. (His roles after that tailed off into cameos here and there, sometimes more amusing than others. He did a fun series of appearances on Entourage as a version of Bob Evans near the end.)
Eric is correct that Landau and Barbara Bain's quitting of Mission: Impossible did not help his standing in the industry. And their reputation for being difficult was more than earned. Bain's behavior at the 1969 Emmys is a clear sign that they were nursing some significantly hard feelings that they didn't get the big deal they wanted from Paramount for a fourth season of M:I, even though both were already being paid fairly generous amounts per episode. (Bain said at times that the departure was due to issues past money, which would lead me to think they wanted creative input and/or directing opportunities - something that neither Paramount nor the show's producers would ever have permitted.) Landau and Bain mostly languished for 4 years after the power play on M:I went bad for them, with the spell only breaking when ITC pushed them for Space: 1999 - and they were able to parlay a huge deal for themselves. Sylvia Anderson has painted a particularly unflattering picture of their behavior in England on Space, including some fairly outrageous demands they placed on the production, and some incredibly unprofessional behavior by Landau in his treatment of the rest of the cast and of the producers. Anderson cited the behavior of Landau and Bain as figuring significantly in her decision not to return for the second series of Space, running next to the other problem of her collapsed marriage with Gerry Anderson.
I took an hour to watch the 1994 interview with Martin Landau included on the 6th disc of the Network Blu-ray set for Series Two of Space: 1999. Landau's comments are almost completely self-serving, and sometimes fairly nasty. He helps spread what is a now oft-repeated canard that he was the first choice for Spock on Star Trek and that he turned down an offer to play the role. He describes the role as being something that would require him to be "lobotomized" and not something that he would be interested in playing. He also insists that his character and portrayal of John Koenig was much more complex and interesting of a character than Shatner's Kirk on Star Trek. Of course, he also offers that he was great friends with "Lenny" and "Bill" as they were neighbors at Desilu when their shows were going.
A few things to keep in mind about those comments. I've seen no indication that Landau was actually told they wanted to cast him - my understanding was that he had an opportunity to audition for the part, as Roddenberry wanted to entertain multiple options if his first choice, Leonard Nimoy, didn't work out with everyone. I do understand that he turned the audition down, but he was also playing coy with Bruce Geller about M:I, and he was able to finagle a scenario where he didn't have to commit to the series full time in case his movie career suddenly took off as he was hoping it would. When that didn't happen, he agreed to be a regular cast member for two seasons, and then he and his wife made the demands that resulted in their being replaced. And who replaced Landau? Leonard Nimoy, who would go on to do the next two seasons of that series before moving on to other projects himself throughout the 70s. Nimoy deadpanned about this at the time, saying he was "good old friends" with "Marty" and refusing to indulge in back-and-forths about whether there was any competition between them.
Over the course of the next couple of decades, Nimoy was able to continue working consistently as a character actor and parlayed his Spock performances into a directing career that saw him direct two major hits by the latter 1980s with Trek IV and Three Men and a Baby. Landau sadly languished during much of this time, usually playing hammy character roles and villains here and there on television and lesser productions. It wasn't until Tucker that Landau finally got a shot in the arm and an Oscar nomination - following that up with his other major roles and his Oscar in early 1995. Nimoy at that time got to his peak of influence on Star Trek with the 1991 movie and then slowly saw his career fade into Star Trek retrospectives over the following 20 years. Between the two men, Nimoy enjoyed far greater fame and fortune - but Landau could be argued to have carved out an interesting niche of his own.
I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that in 1994, Landau was feeling more than a bit competitive with Nimoy, but it's unfortunate that his ego tended to manifest as it did in the interview and in multiple people's recollections of dealing with him. That said, I know others who found him to be a generous teacher and a decent man in his work at the Actors Studio - I just don't think those people ever had to deal with him in the context of something like Space: 1999...
He was never particularly good on Space: 1999 in either season, many times wildly overplaying his scenes in a manner that could provoke unintentional laughter. I'm glad he got the revitalization he did in the latter 80s and early 90s so he could end his career on a positive note and actually get an Oscar to cap it off. (His roles after that tailed off into cameos here and there, sometimes more amusing than others. He did a fun series of appearances on Entourage as a version of Bob Evans near the end.)
Eric is correct that Landau and Barbara Bain's quitting of Mission: Impossible did not help his standing in the industry. And their reputation for being difficult was more than earned. Bain's behavior at the 1969 Emmys is a clear sign that they were nursing some significantly hard feelings that they didn't get the big deal they wanted from Paramount for a fourth season of M:I, even though both were already being paid fairly generous amounts per episode. (Bain said at times that the departure was due to issues past money, which would lead me to think they wanted creative input and/or directing opportunities - something that neither Paramount nor the show's producers would ever have permitted.) Landau and Bain mostly languished for 4 years after the power play on M:I went bad for them, with the spell only breaking when ITC pushed them for Space: 1999 - and they were able to parlay a huge deal for themselves. Sylvia Anderson has painted a particularly unflattering picture of their behavior in England on Space, including some fairly outrageous demands they placed on the production, and some incredibly unprofessional behavior by Landau in his treatment of the rest of the cast and of the producers. Anderson cited the behavior of Landau and Bain as figuring significantly in her decision not to return for the second series of Space, running next to the other problem of her collapsed marriage with Gerry Anderson.
I took an hour to watch the 1994 interview with Martin Landau included on the 6th disc of the Network Blu-ray set for Series Two of Space: 1999. Landau's comments are almost completely self-serving, and sometimes fairly nasty. He helps spread what is a now oft-repeated canard that he was the first choice for Spock on Star Trek and that he turned down an offer to play the role. He describes the role as being something that would require him to be "lobotomized" and not something that he would be interested in playing. He also insists that his character and portrayal of John Koenig was much more complex and interesting of a character than Shatner's Kirk on Star Trek. Of course, he also offers that he was great friends with "Lenny" and "Bill" as they were neighbors at Desilu when their shows were going.
A few things to keep in mind about those comments. I've seen no indication that Landau was actually told they wanted to cast him - my understanding was that he had an opportunity to audition for the part, as Roddenberry wanted to entertain multiple options if his first choice, Leonard Nimoy, didn't work out with everyone. I do understand that he turned the audition down, but he was also playing coy with Bruce Geller about M:I, and he was able to finagle a scenario where he didn't have to commit to the series full time in case his movie career suddenly took off as he was hoping it would. When that didn't happen, he agreed to be a regular cast member for two seasons, and then he and his wife made the demands that resulted in their being replaced. And who replaced Landau? Leonard Nimoy, who would go on to do the next two seasons of that series before moving on to other projects himself throughout the 70s. Nimoy deadpanned about this at the time, saying he was "good old friends" with "Marty" and refusing to indulge in back-and-forths about whether there was any competition between them.
Over the course of the next couple of decades, Nimoy was able to continue working consistently as a character actor and parlayed his Spock performances into a directing career that saw him direct two major hits by the latter 1980s with Trek IV and Three Men and a Baby. Landau sadly languished during much of this time, usually playing hammy character roles and villains here and there on television and lesser productions. It wasn't until Tucker that Landau finally got a shot in the arm and an Oscar nomination - following that up with his other major roles and his Oscar in early 1995. Nimoy at that time got to his peak of influence on Star Trek with the 1991 movie and then slowly saw his career fade into Star Trek retrospectives over the following 20 years. Between the two men, Nimoy enjoyed far greater fame and fortune - but Landau could be argued to have carved out an interesting niche of his own.
I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that in 1994, Landau was feeling more than a bit competitive with Nimoy, but it's unfortunate that his ego tended to manifest as it did in the interview and in multiple people's recollections of dealing with him. That said, I know others who found him to be a generous teacher and a decent man in his work at the Actors Studio - I just don't think those people ever had to deal with him in the context of something like Space: 1999...
Re: Martin Landau R.I.P.
^^ Thanks for that write up.
Amazing actor.
Amazing actor.