Today marks the 79th birthday of actor
John Saxon, who has had a long association with science fiction roles, both on television and in feature films, dating back to, at least, 1965's
Blood Beast From Outer Space! In that decade, he also appeared in the creepy space horror flick
Queen of Blood and an episode of
Irwin Allen's The Time Tunnel, but it's his forays into Seventies sci-fi that we celebrate here.
In 1974, Saxon portrayed a very Jim Kirk-ish, heroic Dylan Hunt in
Gene Roddenberry's unsuccessful television pilot,
Planet Earth. A year later, he played a similar role, Captain Anthony Vico, in Warner Brothers' equally-unsuccessful follow-up,
Strange New World. In both films, he was a very Roddenberry sci-fi hero, tough but brainy, quick with his fists and his wits.
He appeared a couple of times on Universal's
The Six Million Dollar Man (and
Bionic Woman); first, as a lethal android that gave Steve Austin a helluva fight (and inspired Mattel's "Maskatron" action figure), and then a season or two later as an evil alien using the legendary Bionic Bigfoot in his malevolent schemes! On
Wonder Woman, he played a Nazi, and also showed up as an extradimensional tyrant on
The Fantastic Journey in '77!
In 1981, he starred as the tyrannical Sador, the smoothly sinister galactic baddie of
Roger Corman's space opera epic,
Battle Beyond The Stars. He rounded out the
Space: 1970-era with another villainous role in the 1983
Richard Hatch vehicle,
Prisoners Of The Lost Universe.
Of course, while we focus here on his science fiction accomplishments, in his sixty-year career, the actor has played a couple hundred roles in
every genre imaginable. Equally adept at playing tough guy heroes and despicable villains, Saxon has had - and continues to have - a career to be admired (and no doubt, envied, by other actors).
Happy birthday, sir!
