The ten Greatest Actors On The Unique Twilight Zone Sequence, Ranked

For my cash, there’s one straightforward reply to the query of the very best tv present of all time: it is “The Twilight Zone,” clearly. Rod Serling’s influential sequence, which initially premiered in 1959, affords one thing for everyone. There are scary episodes and thought-provoking ones, episodes with aliens and episodes with homicide, and episodes that fall into the Western style, science fiction, horror, and even comedy. That iconic theme music offers the whole lot an air of the surreal, letting us know that we’re watching a present the place absolutely anything can occur.

Serling did not like that the present reran in syndication, however that is a part of what made it so enduring. From SyFy marathons to the sequence’ ubiquity on numerous streaming companies, audiences have been discovering “The Twilight Zone” for many years, sinking into its spectacular again catalog in an effort to be scared, spooked, or just entertained.

One of many joys of rewatching “The Twilight Zone” is realizing simply how spectacular its forged is. The sequence employed plenty of main stars, many earlier than they had been actually well-known. In “Nightmare at 20,000 Toes” — the one with the gremlin on the wing of the aircraft — you will spot William Shatner earlier than “Star Trek.” It is not all the time good; in “The Bard,” considered one of the worst episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” you will get a younger Burt Reynolds doing a Marlon Brando impression. As for the best possible performers to ever seem on the unique run of the present, that query’s a bit tougher to reply. Here is our try.

Jack Klugman was a tv legend. He gained two Emmy Awards for his function as Oscar on “The Odd Couple,” the extra freewheeling, sloppy roommate to Tony Randall’s neat-freak Felix. He additionally starred because the lead on “Quincy, M.E.,” taking part in a Los Angeles health worker who assists the police.

Klugman appeared on “The Twilight Zone” 4 occasions, essentially the most of any actor. Along with “A Passage for Trumpet,” the place he performs a deeply sad trumpet participant, and “Demise Ship,” the place he is an astronaut who finds the ghost of his personal spaceship, Klugman turned in two of the sequence’ finest performances. In “A Recreation of Pool” and “In Reward of Pip,” Klugman is fascinating, taking part in males determined to vary their circumstances.

“A Recreation of Pool” is a two-hander between Klugman and Jonathan Winters. Klugman is Jesse, a pool participant who’s fixated on being the very best on the earth … which might imply he’d must show himself in opposition to Fat Brown (Winters), who’s been useless for years. When Fat exhibits up within the pool corridor anyway, the boys have interaction in a recreation for the ages … and for Jesse’s soul. In “In Reward of Pip,” Klugman performs a father who hears that his son is close to demise in Vietnam. A plea to the heavens permits him to spend one final hour along with his child, and it is as touching as “The Twilight Zone” ever obtained.

Oftentimes, “The Twilight Zone” was all about making the acquainted appear horrifying. Dolls, grandmas, household dynamics … nothing was off-limits. In “It is A Good Life,” essentially the most terrifying factor of all is a child who acts up when he does not get what he desires. Invoice Mumy performs Anthony Fremont, an all-American boy holding his city hostage. When Anthony’s upset, you see, he has the facility to want folks away. They by no means come again.

Mumy had an cute little face, which made the character all of the extra terrifying. He is extraordinarily spectacular within the episode, and never simply “for slightly child,” both. It is a completely calibrated efficiency, often taking part in up Anthony’s innocence and sometimes making him appear to be essentially the most evil, calculating child to ever grace the airwaves. It is a efficiency so iconic, in truth, that he was invited to reprise the character on the 2000s revival of the sequence, bringing Anthony again for a sequel known as “It is Nonetheless A Good Life.”

Although it could’ve been memorable sufficient to land him a spot on this record anyway, this wasn’t Mumy’s solely efficiency on the sequence. He additionally starred in “In Reward of Pip,” taking part in the kid who reappears to Jack Klugman as his son lies on his deathbed in Vietnam. Mumy was additionally in “Lengthy Distance Name,” an episode the place a toddler’s toy telephone lets him converse along with his useless grandmother. It is one other creepy-kid tour-de-force, completely melding childhood and one thing a lot scarier.

Invoice Mumy’s efficiency in “It is A Good Life” is what made the episode so iconic, but it surely would not work almost as nicely with out Cloris Leachman as his mom. The episode got here slightly early in Leachman’s profession, although she would go on to develop into the most-nominated and -awarded Emmy performer of all time. She racked up awards because of her critically adored efficiency on “The Mary Tyler Moore Present,” and she or he took house an Oscar because of her devastating flip in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 movie “The Final Image Present.”

In 1961, although, Leachman performed Mrs. Fremont on “The Twilight Zone.” Her son Anthony is the one who can want folks away, so she lives her life in a relentless state of worry, dedicated to pleasing the kid by giving him something and the whole lot he desires. In a riveting efficiency, Leachman wears her character’s exhaustion and despair throughout her face, her pained smile all the time threatening to crumple into sobs.

Like Mumy, Leachman introduced the character again in “It is Nonetheless A Good Life.” On the opposite facet of the majority of her illustrious profession, she was no much less unbelievable, including many years of expertise to her desperation. Because the half proved, Leachman was among the best to ever grace the “Twilight Zone” stage.

We are inclined to underestimate character actors. They are a particular kind of performer — a dependable participant whose ease at portraying “that man” characters can go a great distance towards characterizing an element that is underserved by script or by display screen time. Lee Marvin was among the best character actors ever, showing in Westerns like “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and the World Conflict II action-drama “The Soiled Dozen.” He gained an Oscar in 1966 for his efficiency within the Western comedy “Cat Ballou,” however for essentially the most half, he was an underappreciated but important ingredient in any movie he confirmed up in. Any time he appeared onscreen, you knew you had been getting a tough-guy efficiency that might stare down the likes of John Wayne and Paul Newman.

In 1961, Marvin lent his stone-cold stare to “The Grave,” considered one of “The Twilight Zone’s” finest Western episodes. Right here, he is Conny Miller, a employed gun despatched to trace down an outlaw named Pinto Sykes. Discovering that he is too late and Sykes is already useless, he learns that the killer threatened to succeed in out of his grave to take Conny’s life if ever he had been to come back round. The locals guess Conny that he isn’t courageous sufficient to spend the evening on Sykes’ grave, and naturally, he takes them up on their wager. It is a very good efficiency stuffed with machismo — made all of the extra engrossing when Conny will get out to the cemetery and has nobody to placed on a courageous face for. 

“We have had some performances of nice depth in ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and subsequent week isn’t any exception,” Rod Serling teases on the finish of the Season 3 episode “A Recreation of Pool.” ” Certain sufficient, a distinguished and extremely gifted younger man lent us his companies when Peter Falk starred in ‘The Mirror.'” Serling did not oversell it. The longer term “Columbo” star was unbelievable in “The Mirror,” an episode a few revolutionary-turned-dictator who has to confront himself when his folks start to stand up.

Falk performs Ramos Clemente, a South American man who deposed a tyrant. Now in control of the nation himself, Clemente is presented a mirror meant to indicate the reflections of males who would assassinate him. As he spends increasingly time staring into the mirror, witnessing visions of his compatriots turning their weapons and knives on him, Clemente is overcome with paranoia. He is sure that each individual in his orbit is secretly plotting his downfall, and it drives him mad. It is a wonderful efficiency; Falk ably portrays a person coming aside on the seams, so corrupted by energy that he cannot enable himself to relaxation for a single second.

He is nice when he goes huge, tearing into his supposed allies with vim and vigor, however he is even higher when he will get small. “Father, I am unable to stay like this,” Clemente tells a priest in a near-whisper towards the tip of the episode. “I am frightened.”

Agnes Moorehead would later come to be recognized for her function on “Bewitched,” the place she starred as an eccentric witch named Endora. Her supernatural sitcom superstardom was really her profession’s second act, nevertheless; within the Nineteen Forties and 50s, she had plenty of critically-acclaimed roles in motion pictures like “Citizen Kane” and “All That Heaven Permits.” She’d even racked up three Academy Award nominations within the Nineteen Forties, for “Johnny Belinda,” “Mrs. Parkington,” and “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

In different phrases, Moorehead’s 1960 look on “The Twilight Zone” was a serious get for the present. She starred in “The Invaders,” one of many present’s most iconic episodes, as an unnamed girl besieged in her own residence by the looks of tiny, violent aliens. It is one of many scariest episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” and it has almost no dialogue. As a substitute, the girl goes about her life earlier than she’s instantly set upon by the little alien males … who develop into astronauts from Earth, that means she’s really the alien. Cue that spooky theme music.

Regardless that she does not get to talk, Moorehead is totally fascinating within the episode. When the girl is shot by one of many astronauts, she clutches her shoulder, contorting her face into an expression of anguish that is as haunting as any within the sequence. The revelation that she’s the extraterrestrial makes her efficiency even higher on reflection, drawing us in earlier than pulling the rug. What a feat.

Ida Lupino’s greatest legacy is as a director. There weren’t that many ladies making motion pictures in the course of the Golden Age of Hollywood, however within the Nineteen Fifties, Lupino turned in a string of thrillers like “Outrage” and “The Hitch-Hiker,” a film that presaged basic road-horror movies like “The Hitcher.” Within the Sixties, she turned to tv, stepping behind the digicam for episodes of exhibits like “Bewitched” and “Gilligan’s Island.” She even directed a late-run episode of “The Twilight Zone” known as “The Masks,” which is the one the place everybody has to put on a creepy masks that remolds their face on the studying of a will.

Early on in “The Twilight Zone,” nevertheless, Lupino gave one of many present’s most haunting performances. In an episode known as “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” Lupino was Barbara Jean Trenton, an getting older movie star who holes herself up in her mansion to look at her previous motion pictures on a loop. She’s nonetheless receiving affords — Lupino was, in any case, solely 41 when she performed the half — however she’s horrified at the concept she needs to be taking part in moms now, viscerally afraid of the thought of getting older. It is slightly bit like “Sundown Blvd.,” if Gloria Swanson obtained depressed as an alternative of delusional. She’s heartbreaking, making Barbara into the type of individual you need to root for … regardless that you’re keen on to look at her disappear into the previous. Actually.

A lot of essentially the most notable episodes of “The Twilight Zone” are thinly veiled allegories for social points, revealing an impressively progressive outlook on postwar American society. The very best of the bunch is “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Road,” a gripping allegory for the Purple Scare that gripped the nation amidst the Chilly Conflict. After mysterious flashes of sunshine within the sky, a mysterious energy outage threatens a sleepy suburban block; quickly, the neighbors spherical on one another, satisfied somebody amongst them is an alien despatched to threaten their lifestyle.

The lone voice of motive is Steve Model (Claude Akins), a person who’s desperately making an attempt to carry his neighborhood collectively as they careen over the sting into violence. Akins is large; his soothing voice and broad, expressive face are the proper canvas on which to undertaking our want for a sane perspective in a world that appears to be spinning uncontrolled. Nonetheless, he isn’t afraid to get loud, to face up for himself. When he shouts, “Are you all gone loopy?” it seems like a rallying cry.

Akins additionally appeared in “The Little Individuals,” a sci-fi episode set on a distant planet. He is a part of a two-man group that discovers a race of tiny folks, and as soon as once more, Akins is the rational one whereas his co-star (Joe Maross) loses his thoughts. It is what he did finest, and the sequence was fortunate to have him.

“As soon as Upon a Time” is, hands-down, the funniest episode of “The Twilight Zone.” It is not a present that usually goes for laughs, however because of a bravura efficiency from the long-lasting Buster Keaton, “As soon as Upon a Time” makes full use of his trademark bodily comedy to nice impact.

He performs Woodrow Mulligan, a janitor within the Eighteen Nineties who works for an inventor. The opening act of the movie is shot like considered one of Keaton’s silent movies, together with sped-up footage, dialogue playing cards, and foolish sight gags. When he steals the inventor’s time-machine helmet, Mulligan travels ahead to 1960; the episode then snaps into trendy filming type, leaving the janitor befuddled by the cacophony of contemporary life.

Keaton was 66 when he starred on “The Twilight Zone,” and the height of the silent movie period had lengthy since handed. Within the episode, nevertheless, he is simply as nimble as he was on the peak of his profession. He is simply nearly as good at conveying exasperation, making himself the proper straight man to his personal slapstick shenanigans. It is a good little bit of casting; like his character, Keaton himself looks as if a relic of an earlier period within the age of tv. In “As soon as Upon a Time,” he proves that he is obtained endurance.

Over time, very like M. Evening Shyamalan, “The Twilight Zone” got here to be recognized for its twist endings. (Additionally like Shyamalan’s work, many “Twilight Zone” episodes do not even have twists.) The very best twist of all, although, is in “Time Sufficient At Final,” the episode the place a bookish man named Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) survives the apocalypse whereas studying in a financial institution vault. He is not too upset about the truth that he is the one man left alive; in any case, he has time to learn all he desires! Solely … within the episode’s closing moments … he breaks his glasses. “There was time now,” he whimpers.

Meredith, a two-time Oscar nominee, is the very best actor within the present’s preliminary run. He appeared in three different episodes along with “Time Sufficient At Final,” tying Jack Klugman’s report because the present’s most frequent participant. “Mr. Dingle the Robust” is okay, and “The Out of date Man” is a stone-cold basic, but it surely’s “Printer’s Satan” the place Meredith actually will get to indicate off his vary. Season 4 switched to hour-long episodes; in lots of circumstances, that meant they weren’t as snappy because the basic episodes, however “Printer’s Satan” is a welcome exception. Meredith performs a newspaper reporter who can anticipate tales; that is as a result of he is Devil himself, stretching his often affable persona into one thing sinister. It is an surprising and unsettling efficiency — “The Twilight Zone” at its easiest.