interview by Tom Weaver
No, I don't think [sci-fi fans are] screwy. Maybe a little strange!
The only veteran of an outer space classic of the 1950s (Forbidden Planet) and an episode of Star Trek, Warren Stevens was born in Pennsylvania and joined the Navy at age 17. His interest in acting was piqued while he was attending Annapolis, and this resulted in 12 weeks of summer stock in Virginia. His friends Gregory Peck and Kenneth Tobey later arranged interviews for Stevens at the renowned Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
Following Air Force service as a pilot during World War II, Stevens began concentrating on his acting career, working in radio and summer stock and joining New York's Actors Studio. His break came via a key role in Broadway's Detective Story, which in turn led to offers from Hollywood studios and a contract with 20th Century-Fox. In the half-century since his movie debut, he has acted in dozens of features and untold hundreds of TV episodes, from Forbidden Planet and the Terminator-like Cyborg 2087 to small-screen SF fare like The Outer Limits, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone (both incarnations) and, back on his old stomping grounds at Fox, the Irwin Allen series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
You were active on TV before you got into the movies, correct?
Yes, in New York, in the old Dumont Studios, which were down in Wanamaker's basement. It was pretty primitive. I remember I did what I think was the very first soap opera on television - this was back in 1947, I guess. It was called Highway to the Stars, and 15 minutes once a week was all it was. I remember one incident where one of the big overhead lamps exploded and showered glass all over us as we were playing the scene! But this was live TV, so we just kept going.
You were also in early TV series like Suspense and Actors Studio. Were those also out of New York?
Oh, yes. That was early live stuff too, '48 and '49. I did all the big live shows like Studio One and Philco TV Playhouse - all of 'em. Work is work, so of course we enjoyed it. On Actors Studio we did The Tell Tale Heart, and I think we won the Peabody Award for that one! Russell Collins was in it, and Jimmy Whitmore. That was all, just the three of us; I think Marty Ritt directed it but I'm not quite sure. It was a good story and a good script. I played the storyteller.
You were a member of the Actors Studio in New York at that time.
Correct, a charter member. The Actors Studio was started by Elia Kazan, Bobby Lewis and Cheryll Crawford, who was a producer. The three of them started this as a workshop. They were all members of the Group Theater earlier, and they recognized the need for a professional workshop in the theater, and that's how they started it in '47. There were two groups in the Actors Studio, one was run by Elia Kazan - that was the one I was in - and the other group was run by Bobby Lewis. It was a professional workshop for actors: Brando was in it, Karl Malden, Monty Clift, lots of talent in there. I also did the first play ever done on Broadway for the Actors Studio, Sundown Beach, which Kazan directed.
And then the Actors Studio branched out into TV.
Well [laughs].work is work! Donald Davis and his wife ran a company called World Video and the Actors Studio had a deal with them, and we did the TV show every week.
How did you come out to Hollywood?
I had been in a hit play for a while, Detective Story, and several of the studios evinced interest in me. So I chose one of them, Fox, and I did a test for them in New York. It was a scene from a play, and I did it with Kim Stanley, who had agreed to work with me on it. We did it and a couple of weeks later, by golly, Fox said okay! And so I went to Fox under a seven-year contract - I came out here in 1950 to 13th Century-Fox.
[Laughs] Why do you call it that? Just because it was so long ago?
I have my reasons.
And you don't care to share them?
No. It doesn't matter. Anyway, I did my penance there for two years - I did eight or nine pictures. The first one I was ever in was a picture called Follow the Sun [1951], the story of Ben Hogan the golfer. You have to look fast-I was the sports announcer. And then there were several more before I left in 1952 to freelance.
The atmosphere at Fox-what was that like? Being around a lot of top Hollywood stars-did that mean anything to you, a stage actor?
Oh, sure! I knew them very well. It was "part of my plan," when I was a kid, to be an actor. So my "plan" worked out okay, I was very happy to be there and mingle with those people and work with them.
When I interviewed actress Merry Anders, she told me about a Fox movie that never got finished. A movie called First of April, about talking animals, with you starring as the voice of a race horse.
That was a marvelous script. I can remember a great deal of it because I always wanted to get the rights to it and do it myself. With today's technology, they could very easily do it. In the story, First of April was the first offspring of a mare named April - they called him Firstie. We were going to put human voices over animals "speaking." But at that time, I guess it was too difficult technically.
So it would have been a Mr. Ed type of movie.
Wellll, yeah, but it was a great story. All of the animals were understandable; when humans spoke in the picture, it was all gibberish. It was a well-conceived thing. They had, of course, the chance to do English horses and South American horses, all with those accents -
Merry Anders says she played a French poodle.
Yes, there was a French poodle, and also a bulldog - the bulldog was Firstie's buddy. I wish it could have gotten made, I always thought that was a great story.
top
next page |
