Sci Fi Trifles: Lost in Space was the End of Guy Williams' Acting Career

Actor Guy Williams is well known by fans of classic sci fi television for his portrayal of Professor John Robinson on all three seasons of Lost in Space.  But did you know that series (often ranked among the Top 10 worst sci fi shows ever) was effectively the end of his career as an actor?

Guy Williams (born Armando Joseph Catalano to Italian parents) began acting in the late 1940's and had mostly bit roles for the first ten years of his career (including an appearance as a cop in the B-Movie "classic" I Was a Teenage Werewolf).  His career jumped up to the next level, though, when he was offered the lead role for Walt Disney's Zorro in the late 50's and he would continue with that series until the early 60's.  After that show had ended, he had starring roles in two minor movies as well as a short stint on TV's Bonanza before he was offered the lead in Irwin Allen's Lost in Space.   He played Professor John Robinson who was the patriarch of the spacebound Robinson family and he was originally supposed to be one of the focal characters of the series.  However, Jonathan Harris' Dr. Smith character proved more popular with the younger-skewing audience and the show started to focus more on the trio of Smith, the Robot, and the young Will Robinson as the scripts became more and more outlandish throughout the show's three season run.  Lost in Space was cancelled at the end of its third year and after sharing screen time with such absurd antagonists as space hillbillies, space ghosts, space werewolves, and a giant talking carrot, apparently Williams decided to call it a career.  He had done well in the stock market and with business investments and decided by the mid-70's to retire to Argentina, a country he had fallen in love with and which received him warmly because of his well-respected portrayal of Zorro. Williams has no acting credits to his name on IMDb.com after Lost in Space except for a 1980's German translation of The Prince and the Pauper which he had starred in on The Wonderful World of Disney in the early 60's.  And that was likely a very good move for him seeing the troubles that other well-known TV actors from the 60's had in finding roles after being typecast from the earlier shows they starred in.

One additional note: Williams actually came close to never playing the role of John Robinson in LiS.  He joined the cast of Bonanza in 1964 when Pernell Roberts wanted to leave the role of Adam Cartwright.  Williams played Will Cartwright and was set to become one of the co-leads on the show, but producers lured Roberts back and Williams' character was written off.  Had he stayed with the show, he likely would have never been considered for the Lost in Space lead as Bonanza remained on the air until 1973.  And if had followed that course, it would be interesting to ponder whether he would have retired at that the same point in his career.

Buy Lost in Space on DVD from Amazon.com:

Sci Fi Trifles: Steven Spielberg Considered Adapting the Harry Potter Books as Animated Films in the Late 90’s

The Harry Potter movies, based on the uber-popular books by J.K. Rowling, are known and beloved the world over and the film franchise has grossed over $7.5 billion worldwide. But did you know that long before Christopher Columbus helmed the first movie--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone--Steven Spielberg considered taking a stab at the books and he wanted to produce them as animated films?

Rowling’s first Harry Potter book hit the stores in 1997 in England (where it was known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) and became an instant success. By 1998, it had made its way across the Atlantic and Warner Bros. studio had taken an immediate interest in the property. They paid $2 million for the rights to the first four books, and Steven Spielberg was the person pegged to helm this promising new franchise in its transition to the big screen. However, Spielberg envisioned the Harry Potter films as CGI-animated affairs. He had noted the phenomenal success that Pixar had with Toy Story in 1995, and he knew that the Harry Potter movies would require plenty of special effects scenes to bring the story to life. So he believed that CGI-animation was the best way to go with the property. He also planned on combining two of the books into a single movie instead of doing a separate film for each. The president of Warner Bros. did not see eye-to-eye with this approach, though, preferring live action films and a single movie per book. Spielberg eventually bowed out of the Harry Potter movies and would go on to do AI: Artificial Intelligence for Warner Bros. in 2001.

The names of several other directors were then tossed out including Terry Gilliam, Alan Parker, Wolfgang Petersen, Rob Reiner, Brad Silberling, Peter Weir and of course Christopher Columbus. This would be narrowed down to Gilliam, Parker, Silberling, and Columbus and Rowling would have preferred that Gilliam take up the director’s chair. But Warner Bros. would eventually award Columbus with the task of shepherding Harry Potter to the big screens. Based on the popularity of the movies, that must have been the right choice. But wouldn’t have been interesting to see the animated interpretation of the character that Spielberg would have created, or just think how differently it would have turned out in Terry Gilliam’s hands.

Source: LA Time Hero Complex and Wikipedia

Buy the Harry Potter Movies on Blu-ray and DVD from Amazon.com:

---

Sci Fi Trifles

Useless but essential pop culture tidbits and trivia from the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

Did you know that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski wrote a proposal for a Star Trek reboot years before the J.J. Abrams movies came out? Did you know that Han Solo was originally supposed to be a green-skinned alien and some of the early actors considered for the role included Billy Dee Williams, Al Pacino, and Chevy Chase? How about that FOX originally wanted someone more like Pamela Anderson to play the roll of Scully on The X-Files? Or that in 1974, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke predicted the Internet? Ever hear of Varney the Vampire?

Find out the truths about these and more in Sci Fi Trifles.  Trivia, anecdotes, little known nuggets and more that present an addicting glimpse into the story behind the story of sci fi. Once you've started reading them you will wonder how you have managed to live so long without knowing them!

Available now for only $2.99 on Kindle from Amazon.com.