Francine York (born Francine Yerich; August 26, 1936 – January 6, 2017) was an American actress and model. She also used the name Francine Yerick.
Francine Yerich was born to Frank and Sophie Yerich in the small mining town Aurora, Minnesota. She attended Hamline University on a drama scholarship.
At age 17, she won the local Miss Eveleth beauty contest and became a runner-up in the Miss Minnesota contest, which was hosted by former Miss America BeBe Shopp.
York soon got a job as a showgirl at Bimbo's nightclub in San Francisco. Bimbo's headliner, Mary Meade French, brought Francine to Hollywood and helped get her signed with an agent. Francine worked as a showgirl at Frank Sennes' Moulin Rouge, a popular Hollywood nightclub on Sunset Blvd., where she performed in three shows a night, seven nights a week, for six months. Tired of sharing a stage with elephants, pigeons, and horses, she began taking acting classes with actor/teacher Jeff Corey. A theatrical producer cast her in a play called Whisper in God's Ear at the Circle Theatre, and she was also cast in her first movie, Secret File: Hollywood, a film about the day-to-day operations of a sleazy Hollywood tabloid.
York's first screen role was in Robert Clarke's Hollywood exploitation film Secret File Hollywood shot in 1960 but not distributed until 1962. Her big break came when Jerry Lewis cast her in It's Only Money, in which she played a tantalizing sexpot, a role which brought her much publicity. This led to Lewis hiring her for five more of his films, including The Nutty Professor, The Patsy, The Disorderly Orderly, The Family Jewels, and Cracking Up, in which she portrayed a 15th-century marquise. Other film appearances include Bedtime Story, Tickle Me, Cannon for Cordoba, and science fiction cult films such as Curse of the Swamp Creature, Mutiny in Outer Space, and Space Probe Taurus.[citation needed] In The Doll Squad (1973), she played CIA agent Sabrina Kincaid. She portrayed Marilyn Monroe in Marilyn: Alive and Behind Bars, and in 2000, she played Nicolas Cage's mother-in-law in The Family Man.
York portrayed Amanda Agnew on It Takes a Thief, Wendy Wendkoski on Slattery's People,: 980 and Kate Landis on The Courtship of Eddie's Father. In 1964, she appeared as Nurse Norma in My Favorite Martian S1 E37 "Uncle Martins Wisdom Tooth". York played Lillie Langtry (with Peter Whitney as Judge Roy Bean) in the 1965 episode "A Picture of a Lady" of the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days. York was featured in five episodes of Burke's Law between 1964 and 1965, and made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, including the role of Ursula Quigley in the 1965 episode "The Case of the Wrongful Writ and as co-defendant Bobbi Dane in the 1966 episode "The Case of the Sausalito Sunrise".
She appeared as Niolani, a military leader from a matriarchal society where males were subjugated, in Lost in Space Season 2, Episode 25 "The Colonists" (1966). She also appeared in a segment of Green Acres; and in “Marry Me, Marry Me”, a 1966 episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C..
On Batman she appeared as Lydia Limpit in episodes 29 and 30 "The Bookworm Turns/While Gotham City Burns" (1966). She continued to act in films and on television, with TV appearances including Hot in Cleveland (as British matriarch Lady Natalie), and The Mindy Project.
She appeared on Bewitched as a statue of the goddess Venus which came to life and became Samantha and Darrin's maid in season 8 episode 5, "Bewitched, Bothered and Baldoni" (1971). She also appeared in an episode of Adam-12, "Reason to Run", Season 3 episode 25.
She appeared on Columbo in Season 5, episode 1, "Forgotten Lady", as Sgt. Leftkowitz in 1975.
She appeared as Queen Medusa during the second season of Jason of Star Command in 1979: in episode 3 "Web of the Star Witch", in episode 10 "Little Girl Lost", and in episode 11 "Mimi's Secret".
In March 1991, York made guest appearances on All My Children, One Life to Live, and Santa Barbara.
York also worked as a fitness/nutrition expert and a gourmet cook.
York never married, and once joked that "Like Cinderella, I always wanted to marry the handsome prince...but they don't make glass slippers in size ten!" However, she was the decade-long companion to director Vincent Sherman until his death 2006. She died on January 6, 2017, in Van Nuys, California from cancer, aged 80. She had been working on her autobiography. She is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Film |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
Year |
Title |
Role |
Notes |
1961 |
The Right Approach |
Freer's Secretary |
Uncredited |
1961 |
The Sergeant Was a Lady |
Tina Baird |
|
1962 |
The Interns |
Verna |
Uncredited |
1962 |
It's Only Money |
Sexy Girl |
|
1962 |
Secret File: Hollywood |
Nan Torr |
|
1963 |
The Nutty Professor |
College Student |
Uncredited |
1963 |
A New Kind of Love |
|
Uncredited |
1964 |
Bedtime Story |
Gina |
|
1964 |
The Disorderly Orderly |
Nurse |
Uncredited |
1965 |
Mutiny in Outer Space |
Capt. Stevens |
|
1965 |
Tickle Me |
Mildred |
Uncredited |
1965 |
The Family Jewels |
Air Hostess |
|
1965 |
Space Probe Taurus |
Dr. Lisa Wayne |
|
1967 |
The Ride to Hangman's Tree |
Connie |
Uncredited |
1970 |
Cannon for Cordoba |
Sophia |
|
1971 |
Welcome Home, Soldier Boys |
Lydia |
|
1973 |
The Doll Squad |
Sabrina Kincaid |
|
1974 |
The Centerfold Girls |
Melissa |
(segment "The Second Story") |
1975 |
Half a House |
Jessica |
|
1978 |
Zero to Sixty |
Mrs. Finch |
|
1983 |
Cracking Up |
Marie Du Bois |
|
1987 |
The Underachievers |
June Patterson |
|
1992 |
Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars |
Marilyn Monroe |
|
1999 |
The Big Tease |
Elegant Woman |
|
2000 |
The Family Man |
Lorraine |
|
2003 |
King of Queens |
Arthur Spooner’s date |
“ Animal Attraction” Penguins |
2005 |
Miracle at Sage Creek |
Mrs. Stanley |
|
2005 |
Hercules in Hollywood |
Hera |
|
2010 |
Astro Zombies: M3 - Cloned |
Sabrina |
|
2017 |
Ten Violent Women: Part Two |
Gloria |
(final film role) |
Although the original concept (depicted in the pilot episode "No Place to Hide", not aired until 1997) centered on the Robinson family, many later storylines focused primarily on Dr. Zachary Smith, played by Jonathan Harris. Smith and Robot B-9 were both absent from the unaired pilot, as the addition of their characters was only decided upon once the series had been commissioned for production.
Originally written as an utterly evil (if careless) saboteur, Smith gradually became the troublesome, self-centered, incompetent character who provided the comic relief for the show and caused much of the conflict and misadventures. In the unaired pilot, what caused the group to become lost in space was a chance encounter with a meteor storm, but in the first aired episode it was Smith's unplanned presence on the ship that sent it off course into the meteor field, and his sabotage that caused the Robot to accelerate the ship into hyperdrive. Smith is thus the key to the story.
On October 16, 1997, 32 years in the future from the perspective of viewers in 1965, the United States is about to launch one of history's great adventures: man's colonization of space. The Jupiter 2 (called Gemini 12 in the unaired pilot episode), a futuristic saucer-shaped spacecraft, stands on its launch pad undergoing final preparations. Its mission is to take a single family on a five-and-a-half-year journey (altered from 98 years in the unaired pilot) to a planet orbiting the nearest star, Alpha Centauri (the pilot show had referred to the planet itself as Alpha Centauri but this error was corrected for the series), which space probes have revealed possesses ideal conditions for human life. All of this is presented as a news report of a real space expedition, with news commentators informing us of the mission's backstory.
The Robinson family, selected from two million volunteers for this mission, consisted of Professor John Robinson, played by Guy Williams, his wife, Maureen, played by June Lockhart, their children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright), and Will (Billy Mumy). They are accompanied by their pilot, U.S. Space Corps Major Donald West (Mark Goddard), who is trained to fly the ship when the time comes for the eventual landing. Initially the Robinsons and Major West will be in freezing tubes for the voyage, with the tubes opening when the spacecraft approached its destination. Unless there is a problem with the ship's navigation or guidance system during the voyage, Major West was only to take the controls during the final approach and landing on the destination planet, while the Robinsons were to strap themselves into contour couches on the lower deck for the landing.
Other nations are racing to colonize space, and they would stop at nothing, not even sabotage, to thwart the United States's effort. It turns out that Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), Alpha Control's doctor, and later said to be a psychiatrist and environmental control expert, is secretly an agent for one of those competing nations. After disposing of a guard who catches him on board the spacecraft, Smith reprograms the Jupiter 2's B-9 environmental control robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy critical systems on the spaceship eight hours after launch. Smith, however, unintentionally becomes trapped aboard at launch and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter a meteor storm. This, plus the robot's rampage that causes the ship to prematurely engage its hyperdrive, causes the expedition to become hopelessly lost in the infinite depths of outer space.
Smith's selfish actions and laziness frequently endanger the expedition. After the first half of the first season, Smith's role assumes less sinister overtones, although he continues to display many character flaws. In "The Time Merchant" Smith shows he actually does care about the Robinsons, when he travels back in time to the day of the Jupiter 2 launch, with the hope of changing his own fate by not boarding the ship, so allowing the Robinsons to start the mission as originally planned. However, he learns that without his weight altering the ship's course, the Jupiter 2 will be destroyed by an uncharted asteroid. So he sacrifices his chance to stay on earth, electing to re-board the ship, thus saving the lives of the family and continuing his role amongst them as the reluctant stowaway.
The fate of the castaways is never resolved, as the series was unexpectedly canceled at the end of season 3.
The astronaut family of Dr. John Robinson, accompanied by an Air Force/Space Corps pilot and a robot, set out in the year 1997 from an overpopulated Earth in the spaceship Jupiter 2 to travel to a planet circling the star Alpha Centauri with hopes of colonizing it. The Jupiter 2 mission is sabotaged by Dr. Zachary Smith – an agent for an unnamed foreign government – who slips aboard the spaceship and reprograms the robot to destroy the ship and crew. However, when he is trapped aboard, his excess weight alters the craft's flight path and places it directly in the path of a massive meteor storm. Smith manages to save himself by prematurely reviving the crew from suspended animation. The ship survives, but consequent damage caused by Smith's earlier sabotage of the robot leaves them lost in space. In the third episode the Jupiter 2 crashlands on an alien world, later identified by Will as Priplanus, where they spend the rest of the season and survive a host of adventures. Smith, whom Allen had originally intended to write out, remains through all three seasons, as a source of comedic cowardice and villainy, exploiting the eternally forgiving nature of Professor Robinson. Smith was liked by the trusting Will, and tolerated by the women, but he was disliked by both the Robot and the suspicious Major Don West.
At the start of the second season the repaired Jupiter 2 launches into space once more, to escape the destruction of Priplanus following a series of cataclysmic earthquakes, but in the fourth episode the Robinsons crash-land on a strange new world, to become planet-bound again for another season. This replicated the format of the first season, but now the focus of the series was more on humor than on action/adventure, as evidenced by the extreme silliness of Dr. Smith amidst a plethora of unlikely aliens who began appearing on the show, often of a whimsical fantasy-oriented nature. One of these colorful visitors even turned out to be Smith's own cousin, intent on swindling him out of a family inheritance with the assistance of a hostile gambling machine. A new theme tune was recorded by Warren Barker for the second season, but it was decided to retain the original.
In the third season, a major format change was introduced, to bring the series back to its roots as solid adventure, by allowing the Robinsons to travel to more planets. The Jupiter 2 was now allowed to freely travel space, visiting a new world each week, as the family attempt to return to Earth or to reach their original destination in the Alpha Centauri system. A newly built "Space Pod", that mysteriously appeared as though it had always been there, provided a means of transportation between the ship and passing planets, as well as being a plot device to launch various escapades. This season had a dramatically different opening credits sequence and a new theme tune – which, like the original, was composed by John Williams – as part of the show's new direction.
Dr. (Professor) John Robinson (Guy Williams): The expedition commander and the father of the Robinson children. He is an astrophysicist who also specializes in applied planetary geology.
Dr. Maureen Robinson (June Lockhart): John's biochemist wife. Her role in the series is often to prepare meals, tend the garden, and help with light construction while adding a voice of compassion. Her counsel is sometimes the only thing that prevents the Robinsons from leaving Dr. Smith behind after some of his particularly heinous actions, because she finds it unthinkable to condemn any human being to a life of total isolation from his own kind. Her status as a doctor is mentioned only in the first episode and in the second-season episode "The Astral Traveler".
Major Don West (Mark Goddard): The military pilot of the Jupiter 2. He is Dr. Smith's intemperate and intolerant adversary. His mutual romantic interest with Judy was not developed beyond the first few episodes. In the un-aired pilot, "Doctor Donald West" was a graduate student astrophysicist and expert in interplanetary geology, rather than a military man.
Judy Robinson (Marta Kristen): The oldest child of the Robinsons. She is about 19 years old at the outset of the series. In the unaired pilot, she is described as having given up a promising career in musical theater to go with her family instead.
Penny Robinson (Angela Cartwright): The middle child. An imaginative 11-year-old in the first season, she loves animals and classical music. Early in the series, she acquires a chimpanzee-like alien pet with pointy ears that made one sound, "Bloop". While it is usually referred to by Will and Professor Robinson as the bloop, Penny named the creature "Debbie". Most of Penny's adventures have a fairy-tale quality, underscoring her innocence. She is described in the unaired pilot, "No Place To Hide", as having an IQ of 147 and an interest in zoology.
Will Robinson (Billy Mumy): The youngest child. A precocious 9-year-old in the first season, he is a child prodigy in electronics and computer technology. Often, he is a friend to Smith when no one else is. Will is also the member of the family closest to the Robot.
Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris): Acting as Alpha Control's flight surgeon in the first episode, he is later referred to as a Doctor of Intergalactic Environmental Psychology, expert in cybernetics, and an enemy agent (roles that are rarely mentioned after the initial episodes). His attempt to sabotage the mission strands him aboard the Jupiter 2 and results in its becoming lost.
The Robot: The Robot is a Class M-3, Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Robot (G.U.N.T.E.R.), which had no given name. Although a machine, endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, it often displayed human characteristics, such as laughter, sadness, and mockery, as well as singing and playing a guitar. The Robot was performed by Bob May in a prop costume built by Bob Stewart. The voice was dubbed by Dick Tufeld, who was also the series' narrator. The Robot was designed by Robert Kinoshita, who was also the designer of the iconic Robby the Robot for the 1956 sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet who made extensive appearances in subsequent films and productions.
During its three-season run, many actors made guest appearances, including familiar actors and/or actors who went on to become well-known. Among those appearing in Lost in Space episodes: Kevin Hagen, Alan Hewitt, Sherry Jackson, Werner Klemperer, Warren Oates, Don Matheson, Kurt Russell, Wally Cox, Grant Sullivan, Norman Leavitt, Tommy Farrell, Mercedes McCambridge, Lyle Waggoner, Albert Salmi, Royal Dano, Strother Martin, Michael J. Pollard, Byron Morrow, Arte Johnson, Fritz Feld, John Carradine, Al Lewis, Hans Conried, Dennis Patrick, Michael Rennie among many others. Future Hill Street Blues stars, Daniel J. Travanti (billed as "Danny Travanty") and Michael Conrad, made guest appearances on separate episodes. Jonathan Harris, although a permanent cast member, was listed in the opening credits as "Special Guest Star" of every episode of Lost in Space.
In 1962, the first appearance of a space-faring Robinson family occurred in a comic book published by Gold Key Comics. The Space Family Robinson, who were scientists aboard Earth's "Space Station One", are swept away in a cosmic storm in the comic's second issue. These Robinsons were scientist father Craig, scientist mother June, early teens Tim (son) and Tam (daughter), along with pets Clancy (dog) and Yakker (parrot). Space Station One also boasted two spacemobiles for ship-to-planet travel.
The television show launched three years later, in 1965, and during its run CBS and 20th Century Fox reached an agreement with Gold Key Comics that allowed the use of the name "Robinson" on the TV show; in return, the comic was allowed to append " – Lost In Space" to its title, with the potential for the TV show to propel additional sales of the comic.
Following the format of Allen's first television series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, unlikely fantasy-oriented adventure stories were dreamed up that had little to do with either serious science or serious science fiction. The stories had little realism, with, for instance, explosions happening randomly, merely to cover an alien's arrival or departure, or sometimes merely the arrival of some alien artifact.
Props and monsters were regularly recycled from other Irwin Allen shows, as a matter of budgetary convenience, and the same alien would appear on Voyage one week and Lost in Space the next. A sea monster outfit that had featured on Voyage would get a spray paint job for its Lost in Space appearance, while space monster costumes would be reused on Voyage as sea monsters. The clear round plastic pen holder used as a control surface in the episode "The Derelict" turned up regularly throughout the show's entire run both as primary controls to activate alien machinery (or open doors or cages), and as background set dressing; some primary controls were seen used in episodes such as Season 1's "The Keeper (Parts 1 and 2)", "His Majesty Smith", and Season 3's "A Day At The Zoo", and "The Promised Planet".
Spacecraft models, too, were routinely re-used. The foreboding derelict ship from season 1 was redressed to become the Vera Castle in season 3, which, in turn, was reused in several episodes (and flipped upside down for one of them). The Fuel Barge from season 2 became a Space Lighthouse in season 3, with a complete re-use of the effects footage from the earlier story. The derelict ship was used again in season 3, with a simple color change. Likewise the alien pursuer's ship in "The Sky Pirate", which itself was an Earth ship lifted from the 1958 film War of the Satellites, was re-used in the episode "Deadliest of the Species". Moreover, the footage of Hapgood's ship launching into space in episode 6 of season 1 was re-used for virtually every subsequent launch in the following three years, no matter what shape the ship it supposedly represented had had on the ground (such as the launch of the alien ship in Season 1's "The Space Croppers", Nerim's ship's launch in the Season 2 opener "Blast Off Into Space", Season 2's "The Colonists" - which featured a landing approach scene, in which the landing was aborted and a reversal of film showed the ship heading back into space, this after Will, the Robot, and Smith sabotage Niolani's landing pad for her people's colonization of the planet, and Season 3's "A Day At The Zoo" when Farnum B.'s ship takes off at the end if the episode). While several of the episodes listed do not show the space ship on the ground (or partial ship, such as Nerim's), they all use the same footage as seen for Hapgood's ship.
By the end of the first season, the character of Smith is permanently established as a bungling, self-serving, greedy, manipulative coward. These character traits are magnified in subsequent seasons. His haughty bearing, and ever-present alliterative repartee, were staples of the character. While he and Major West repeatedly clashed over his goldbricking, or because of some villainy he had perpetrated, the Robot was usually the preferred victim of his barbed and acerbic wit.
Despite Harris being credited as a "Special Guest Star" on every episode, Smith became the pivotal character of the series. Harris was the last actor cast, with the others all having appeared in the unaired pilot. He was informed that he would "have to be in last position" in the credits. Harris voiced discomfort at this, and (with his continuation beyond the first few episodes still in doubt) suggested appearing in the last position as "Special Guest Star". After having "screamed and howled", Allen agreed. The show's writers expected that Smith would indeed be a temporary villain, who would only appear in the early episodes. Harris, on the other hand, hoped to stay longer on the show, but he found his character as written very boring, and feared it would quickly bore the audience too. Harris "began rewriting his lines and redefining his character", by playing Smith in an attention-getting, flamboyant style, and ad-libbing his scenes with colorful, pompous dialogue. Allen quickly noticed this, and liked it. As Harris himself recalled, Allen said, "I know what you're doing. Do more of it!" Mumy recalls how, after he had learned his own lines, Harris would ask to rehearse with him using his own dialogue. "He truly, truly single-handledly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know," said Mumy. "This man we love-to-hate, a sniveling coward who would cower behind the little boy, 'Oh, the pain! Save me, William!' That's all him!"
Lost in Space is remembered, in part, for the Robot's oft-repeated lines such as "Warning! Warning!" and "It does not compute". Smith's frequent put-downs of the Robot were also popular, and Jonathan Harris was proud to talk about how he used to lie in bed at night dreaming them up for use on the show. "You Bubble-headed Booby!", "Cackling Cacophony", "Tin Plated Traitor", "Blithering Blatherskyte", and "Traitorous Transistorized Toad" are but a few alongside his trademark lines: "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" and "Never fear, Smith is here!" One of Jonathan Harris's last roles was providing the voice of the illusionist praying mantis "Manny" in Disney's A Bug's Life, where Harris used "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" near the end of the film.
The catchphrase "Danger, Will Robinson!" originates with the series, but was only ever used once in it, during season 3, episode 11: “The Deadliest of the Species”, when the Robot warns young Will Robinson about an impending threat. It was also used as the slogan of the 1998 movie, whose official website had the address www.dangerwillrobinson.com.
In 1962, Gold Key comics (formerly Dell Comics), a division of Western Publishing Company, began publishing a series of comic books under the title Space Family Robinson. The story was largely inspired by The Swiss Family Robinson but with a space-age twist. The movie and television rights to the comic book were then purchased by noted television writer Hilda Bohem (The Cisco Kid), who created a treatment under the title, Space Family 3000.
In July 1964, science fiction writer and filmmaker Ib Melchior began pitching a treatment for a feature film, also under the title Space Family Robinson. There is debate as to whether or not Allen was aware of the Melchior treatment. It is also unknown whether Allen was aware of the comic book or the Hilda Bohem treatment.
As copyright law only protects the actual expression of a work, and not titles, general ideas or concepts, in 1964 Allen moved forward with his own take on Space Family Robinson, with characters and situations notably different from either the Bohem or the Melchior treatments (none of the three treatments contained the characters of Smith or the Robot).
Intended as a follow up to his first successful television venture, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Allen quickly sold his concept for a television series to CBS. Concerned about confusion with the Gold Key comic book, CBS requested that Allen come up with a new title. Nevertheless, Hilda Bohem filed a claim against Allen and CBS Television shortly before the series premiered in 1965.
A compromise was struck as part of a legal settlement. In addition to an undisclosed sum of money, Western Publishing would be allowed to change the name of its comic book to Lost in Space.
There were no other legal challenges to the title until 1995, when New Line Cinema announced their intention to turn Lost in Space into a big budget motion picture. New Line had purchased the screen rights from Prelude Pictures (which had acquired the screen rights from the Irwin Allen Estate in 1993). At that time, Melchior contacted Prelude Pictures and insisted that Lost in Space was directly based upon his 1964 treatment. Melchior was aided in his efforts by Ed Shifres, a fan who had written a book entitled Space Family Robinson: The True Story (later reprinted with the title, Lost in Space: The True Story). The book attempts to show how Allen allegedly plagiarized Melchior's concept, with two outlines presented side-by-side.
To satisfy Melchior, Prelude Pictures hired the 78-year-old filmmaker as a consultant on their feature film adaptation. This accommodation was made without the knowledge or consent of the Irwin Allen Estate or Space Productions, the original copyright holder of Lost in Space. Melchior's contract with Prelude also guaranteed him 2% of the producer's gross receipts, a provision that was later the subject of a suit between Melchior and Mark Koch of Prelude Pictures. Although an Appellate Court ruled partly in Melchior's favor, on November 17, 2004, the Supreme Court of California denied a petition by Melchior to further review the case.
No further claim was made and Space Productions now contends that Allen was the sole creator of the television series Lost in Space.
Melchior died on March 14,
2015 at the age of 97.
Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991) was an American film and television producer and director, known for his work in science fiction, then later as the "Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. His most successful productions were The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He also created and produced the popular 1960s science fiction television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.
Irwin Allen was born in New York City, the son of poor Jewish immigrants from Russia. He majored in journalism and advertising at Columbia University after attending City College of New York for a year. He left college because of financial difficulties caused by the Great Depression.
He moved to Hollywood in 1938, where he edited Key Magazine followed by an 11-year stint producing his own program at radio station KLAC. The success of the radio show led to him being offered his own gossip column, Hollywood Merry-Go-Round, which was syndicated to 73 newspapers.
Allen produced his first TV program, a celebrity panel show also called Hollywood Merry-Go-Round with announcer Steve Allen (no relation), before moving into film production.
Allen became involved in film production at a time when power was beginning to shift from studios to talent agencies. He put together packages consisting of directors, actors and script, and sold them to film studios.
Allen's first film as producer was Where Danger Lives (1950) at RKO with Robert Mitchum, directed by John Farrow and written by Charles Bennett. Allen produced it with Irving Cummings Jr.
The two men made two more films for RKO: Double Dynamite (1951) with Jane Russell, Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra, and A Girl in Every Port (1952), again with Marx and William Bendix.
Allen made his directorial debut with the documentary, The Sea Around Us (1953), at RKO. This was based on Rachel Carson's best-selling book of the same name. It was made with largely stock footage and won the 1952 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.:87 Carson was so disappointed with Allen's final version of the script that she never again sold film rights to her work. The film includes gory images of whales being killed that are more shocking to modern audiences than they were at the time. It was a success, making a profit of over $2 million.
Allen returned to producing with the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), his final film for RKO. It starred Victor Mature, Bendix, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price.
Allen directed a semi-documentary about the evolution of life, The Animal World (1956). Again he made heavy use of stock footage, but he also included a nine-minute stop-motion dinosaur sequence by Ray Harryhausen. Before release, he toned down the gore from both the live action and the animation.
The film was released by Warner Bros. So was Allen's next film, The Story of Mankind (1957), a very loose adaptation of the Hendrik Willem van Loon book of the same name. It featured many well-known actors including the Marx Brothers, Ronald Colman, Hedy Lamarr, Vincent Price, and a young Dennis Hopper. The actors were each paid $2,500 for a single day's work with Allen relying on stock footage for the rest of the film.
Allen co-wrote (with Bennett) and produced The Big Circus (1959) for Allied Artists Pictures with Mature, Red Buttons, Peter Lorre and Price. Allen was interested in making "an exciting colourful show - something the public can't see on television."
Allen went to 20th Century Fox where he co-wrote (with Bennett) produced and directed three films: The Lost World (1960), from the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962).
Willis O'Brien, who had worked on the pioneering special effects of the original Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933) films, was disappointed when Allen opted to save time by using live alligators and lizards instead of stop-motion animation for the film's dinosaurs. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a scientifically dubious, Jules Verne-style adventure to save the world from a burning Van Allen belt. It was the basis for his later television series of the same name. The family film, Five Weeks in a Balloon was a loose adaptation of the Verne novel. Lost World was a moderate hit and Voyage was very successful. Five Weeks was a box office disappointment.
With 20th Century Fox scaling back their film productions due to the massive expenditure on films like Cleopatra (1963), in the mid 1960s Allen concentrated on television, producing several overlapping science fiction series for 20th Century Fox Television. They featured special effects by L. B. Abbott who won three Emmys for his work.:204 Allen used many of the same craftsmen on his TV shows as he did on his films, including composer John Williams as well as costume designer and general assistant Paul Zastupnevich.:6
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–68, ABC TV) established both Allen's and 20th Century Fox's reputation as television producers. The financial viability of the series was enormously helped by the re-use of many of the sets from the film; the cost of the Seaview submarine sets alone exceeded the budget of a typical pilot show of the era.:11 The series also benefited from Allen's by now notorious use of stock film footage, particularly from Hell and High Water (1954), The Enemy Below (1957) and Allen's The Lost World.:16
Allen had originally intended Lost in Space (1965–68, CBS TV) to be a family show, a science fiction version of The Swiss Family Robinson.:116 It quickly developed into a children's show with episodes concentrating on the young Will Robinson, the robot, and, especially, the comic villain, Dr. Smith.:36–7 The show popularized several science fiction elements that have since become widespread, such as the comic robot (e.g. Silent Running, Star Wars) or android (Logan's Run, Star Trek: The Next Generation), the heroic child (Voyagers!, Meeno Peluce), and the wacky lovable alien (Albert in Alien Nation, Vir in Babylon 5).:124
The Time Tunnel (1966–67, ABC TV), with each episode set in a different historical time period, was an ideal vehicle for Allen's talent for smoothly mixing live action with stock footage from films set in the same period. A change in network management led to the show being cancelled after just one season.:204
Land of the Giants (1968–70, ABC TV) was the most expensive show of its day at roughly $250,000 per episode. As another castaway themed show, Allen incorporated some of the successful elements from Lost in Space, although this time he did not allow the treacherous character to dominate the series.:273
Allen also produced several TV movies, such as City Beneath the Sea, which recycled many props and models from Voyage, Lost in Space, and Man From The 25th Century. Both were intended as pilots for new TV series projects, but his small-screen success from the 1960s largely eluded him in the 1970s.
Lost in Space's Bill Mumy said of Allen that, while he was very good at writing television pilots that sold, his unwillingness to spend money hurt his shows' quality once on the air. A monster costume that appeared on one of his shows, for example, would appear on another a few weeks later with new paint. Writer Jon Abbott described Allen as paradoxical. "Here was a man who, when told the cost of a spaceship for a Lost in Space alien, snapped, 'Let him walk!' ... and then let the show be canceled rather than take a cut in the budget".
In 1969 Allen signed a three-picture deal with Avco Embassy to make The Poseidon Adventure, Mo Man's World and Almost Midnight. However the deal did not lead to any films.
In the 1970s, Allen produced the most successful films of his career: The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), directing the action scenes for both. Their showmanship was compared to that of P.T. Barnum and Cecil B. DeMille, and they prompted scholarly analysis of the subsequent popularity of the disaster genre.
The Poseidon Adventure was based on the Paul Gallico novel of the same name and directed by Ronald Neame. Unable to find a studio to fully back the venture, Allen raised half the $5 million budget, with 20th Century-Fox putting up the rest; the film eventually grossed over $100 million. L. B. Abbott and A.D. Flowers won a Special Achievement Academy Award for the film's optical and physical effects.:38
Allen hoped to follow up on the success of The Poseidon Adventure with a film based on the novel The Tower, but the film rights had already been taken by Warner Bros. He looked for an alternative and found a similar story in The Glass Inferno. Rather than produce competing movies, 20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros. agreed to coproduce The Towering Inferno with a script based on both novels and a $14 million budget. It was the first time two major studios made a film together, splitting the costs. Despite its nearly three-hour running length, the film, directed by John Guillermin, was a hit and won three Academy Awards.:39
The success of the films led to Allen receiving an offer to make three TV movies. "I missed television," said Allen. "There's a hysteria and an excitement in television that exists nowhere else in business."
Each was made for Fox television at a budget of $1 million with a view to possibly going to series. They screened on different networks: Adventures of the Queen (1975), The Swiss Family Robinson (1975) and Time Travelers (1976). Only Swiss Family was picked up for a series, running for 20 episodes.
Allen left 20th Century Fox when a change in management cancelled the remaining three planned disaster films. He was offered a deal at Warner Bros. by Jon Calley, who built an office building for Allen. Allen continued to work there for the remainder of his career.
The rise of new filmmakers like George Lucas reportedly caught him off guard. According to one book, the success of Star Wars (1977) bewildered him; he could not understand how a film with apparently no stars or love story could enrapture audiences so fervently.
Allen produced three made-for-TV disaster movies: Flood! (1976), Fire! (1977), and Hanging by a Thread (1979). He also made Viva Knievel! (1977), The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978), and The Memory of Eva Ryker (1980).
For theatrical release, he produced and directed The Swarm (1978) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), and produced When Time Ran Out (1980). These three films were box office disappointments.
"No, I'm not going to run out of disasters," he said in a 1977 interview. "Pick up the daily newspaper, which is my best source for crisis stories, and you'll find 10 or 15 every day... People chase fire engines, flock to car crashes. People thrive on tragedy. It's unfortunate, but in my case, it's fortunate. The bigger the tragedy, the bigger the audience."
Allen later went to Columbia to make a short lived TV series, Code Red (1981–82). His last films for Warners were The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1982), and Cave-In! (1979, though not released until 1983). Shortly before Cave-In! made its TV debut, Allen was awarded a Worst Career Achievement Golden Raspberry Award.
While at Columbia, Allen made a $14 million TV version of Alice in Wonderland (1985). His last credit was the TV movie Outrage! (1986).
Allen planned to make a star-studded musical of Pinocchio, but his declining health forced his retirement in 1986. He died from a heart attack on November 2, 1991.
The "Irwin Allen rock-and-roll" is when the camera is rocked as the on-screen cast rushes from side to side on the set, simulating a ship being tossed around. It is employed in many episodes of Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. This camera technique was employed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "First Spaceship on Venus". Here the camera tilts to simulate the spacecraft being hit. During this scene, Joel shouts out "Irwin Allen presents...".
Allen's career in film and TV was the subject of a 1995 documentary, The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, produced and directed by Kevin Burns, co-founder of Foxstar Productions, originally set up as the production unit responsible for creating a series of Alien Nation movies for television. Numerous cast members and associates from various Irwin Allen projects appeared in the film, lending recollections of their time working with him.
In 1994, while Senior VP of Foxstar, Burns founded Van Ness Films, a non-fiction and documentary production unit. That same year, he met Jon Jashni, a Fox film executive who shared Burns' interest in Allen's works.
In 1998, the two collaborated on a TV retrospective special, Lost in Space Forever. Hosted by John Laroquette, it chronicled the series' creation and run on TV in the 1960s and beyond, and featured appearances by Bill Mumy, Jonathan Harris, June Lockhart, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen, as well as film footage of vintage interviews with Guy Williams. Also appearing were Bob May, who donned the Robot suit, and Dick Tufeld, who supplied the character's voice. The flight deck set of the Jupiter 2 spacecraft from the series was recreated as the backdrop for parts of the special.
It also was used as a vehicle to promote the 1998 Lost in Space film version of the original television series, starring William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Lacey Chabert, Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham.
Burns and Jashni later formed Synthesis Entertainment and began developing and producing remakes of, and sequels to, several Allen properties, including a 2002 Fox Television pilot for an updated version of The Time Tunnel, which did not sell, and remakes of films including Poseidon (2006) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The 2002 TV pilot was included as a bonus feature on Volume 2 of Fox's 2006 DVD release of the 30-episode Time Tunnel (1966–67) TV series.
|
Year |
Film |
Director |
Producer |
Writer |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1953 |
The Sea Around Us |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Documentary |
|
1954 |
Dangerous Mission |
|
Yes |
|
|
|
1956 |
The Animal World |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Documentary |
|
1957 |
The Story of Mankind |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
1960 |
The Big Circus |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
The Lost World |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
1961 |
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
1962 |
Five Weeks in a Balloon |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
1972 |
The Poseidon Adventure |
|
Yes |
|
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama |
|
1974 |
The Towering Inferno |
|
Yes |
|
Directed action
sequences |
|
1978 |
The Swarm |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
1979 |
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
1980 |
When Time Ran Out |
|
Yes |
|
|
On January 3, 2008, BBC Four showed a night of Allen's work which included the 1995 documentary The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen along with episodes of Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Episode 57 of the Disney TV series Duck Tales screened December 8, 1987, titled "The Uncrashable Hindentanic" features a character called "Irwin Mallard" who films the destruction of Scrooge McDuck's airship called the Hindentanic in the disaster movie style of Irwin Allen.
"The Irwin Allen Show" was a skit on SCTV. The Irwin Allen Show was a Johnny Carson-style talk show with Allen as the host. The guests were stars in Allen's movies, and they were each individually victims of an Irwin Allen-style disaster while a guest on the talk show (e.g. Red Buttons was attacked by a swarm of bees).
In the film Ocean's Thirteen (2007) Linus Caldwell (played by Matt Damon) announces aloud to a catatonic Reuben Tishkoff that Rusty Ryan is doing an 'Irwin Allen' which is a reference to the fake earthquake they stage later in the story.