toobfreak
Tungsten/Glass Member
If you don’t know the name, I’m sure you know the face. One of my favorite and IMO most unforgettable, underrated/under-appreciated method actors of the 20th century, Woodward was a perennial heavy in everything from westerns to science fiction.
He had a distinctive, unforgettable face chiseled and pock-marked whose steely gaze could make your blood run cold, replete with a fabulous range and intensity of expressions to go along with his deep, thunderous, authoritative voice. Once seen or heard, his face and voice stood out as unmistakable.
He appeared in more than 250 TV episodes and films. In film, he is remembered best for his role in Cool Hand Luke. In television, he is best remembered for everything from The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp and Wagon Train, to Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Waltons, the Dukes of Hazard and Dallas, to Logan’s Run, Hill Street Blues and Millennium. He also appeared in two western episodes of the TV Series ‘Kung-Fu’ with David Carradine, in the first season episode ‘Sun and Cloud Shadow,’ and the second season’s episode ‘The Nature of Evil.’
But I remember him best for his two appearances on Star Trek, first as the unforgettable Dr. Simon Van Gelder where he was subjected to the “Neural Neutralizer” in James Gregory’s Tantalus V penal colony (Dagger of the Mind) where Spock is seen for the very first time using his Vulcan “Mind Meld,” and I believe it was the first neck pinch as well, and his second season appearance in “The Omega Glory” which along with “Mudd’s Women,” were the two scripts rejected by NBC as a second pilot in favor of ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before.’ Here he is seen as Captain Ron Tracey of the USS Exeter found down on the surface of planet Omega IV after everyone else on his ship had been turned to mineral crystals. This was also an example where we see a different Star Fleet Insignia on Tracey’s uniform, in those days suggesting that each starship had a different insignia before the “Star Fleet” insignia was formalized as common everywhere.
Now immunized by some agent on the planet, convinced he had found there a fountain of youth because the natives there lived to immense ages and now caught in the middle of a parallel society war between the resident Yangs (Yanks) and the Comms (Communists), he clashes with the Enterprise crew as well in the hopes of bringing this fountain of youth back to the rest of the galaxy only to find in the end it was only the result of germ warfare and these people lived centuries only because it was now natural for them. In an interview later in his career, Woodward called his role as Dr. Simon Van Gelder on Star Trek the most physically and emotionally exhausting acting job of his career. I’ve always felt that his haunting intensity in that role was what truly fixed his career among the stars of Hollywood.
Woodward died at his house in California on the 22nd a few days ago of cancer at the age of 93 years old.
He had a distinctive, unforgettable face chiseled and pock-marked whose steely gaze could make your blood run cold, replete with a fabulous range and intensity of expressions to go along with his deep, thunderous, authoritative voice. Once seen or heard, his face and voice stood out as unmistakable.
He appeared in more than 250 TV episodes and films. In film, he is remembered best for his role in Cool Hand Luke. In television, he is best remembered for everything from The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp and Wagon Train, to Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Waltons, the Dukes of Hazard and Dallas, to Logan’s Run, Hill Street Blues and Millennium. He also appeared in two western episodes of the TV Series ‘Kung-Fu’ with David Carradine, in the first season episode ‘Sun and Cloud Shadow,’ and the second season’s episode ‘The Nature of Evil.’
But I remember him best for his two appearances on Star Trek, first as the unforgettable Dr. Simon Van Gelder where he was subjected to the “Neural Neutralizer” in James Gregory’s Tantalus V penal colony (Dagger of the Mind) where Spock is seen for the very first time using his Vulcan “Mind Meld,” and I believe it was the first neck pinch as well, and his second season appearance in “The Omega Glory” which along with “Mudd’s Women,” were the two scripts rejected by NBC as a second pilot in favor of ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before.’ Here he is seen as Captain Ron Tracey of the USS Exeter found down on the surface of planet Omega IV after everyone else on his ship had been turned to mineral crystals. This was also an example where we see a different Star Fleet Insignia on Tracey’s uniform, in those days suggesting that each starship had a different insignia before the “Star Fleet” insignia was formalized as common everywhere.
Now immunized by some agent on the planet, convinced he had found there a fountain of youth because the natives there lived to immense ages and now caught in the middle of a parallel society war between the resident Yangs (Yanks) and the Comms (Communists), he clashes with the Enterprise crew as well in the hopes of bringing this fountain of youth back to the rest of the galaxy only to find in the end it was only the result of germ warfare and these people lived centuries only because it was now natural for them. In an interview later in his career, Woodward called his role as Dr. Simon Van Gelder on Star Trek the most physically and emotionally exhausting acting job of his career. I’ve always felt that his haunting intensity in that role was what truly fixed his career among the stars of Hollywood.
Woodward died at his house in California on the 22nd a few days ago of cancer at the age of 93 years old.
