Ray Walston

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Ray Walston (December 2, 1914–January 1, 2001) was a stage, television and feature film character actor who played the title character on the situation comedy My Favorite Martian and Judge Henry Bone on the drama series Picket Fences.

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Early life

He was born Herman Walston in New Orleans, Louisiana, to middle-class parents Harrie and Mittie Walston. He started acting at an early age, beginning his tenure as a "spear carrier" rounding out productions at many New Orleans theaters. He mostly played small roles with stock companies, where he not only starred in travelling shows but also worked at a movie theater, selling tickets and cleaning the stage floors. His family moved to Houston, Texas, where he joined the Houston Civic Theater's repertory company under Margo Jones, debuting in 1938.

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Stage work

Walston was very popular with Margo Jones's team of actors before he travelled to Cleveland, Ohio, where he spent three years with the Cleveland Playhouse. He then traveled to New York City, where he made his Broadway debut in a 1945 production of Hamlet and would later work in shows directed by Jose Ferrer and George Abbott. Abbott cast Walston as Satan in Damn Yankees!, with dancer Gwen Verdon as his sexy aide Lola. The chemistry between Verdon and Walston was such that they both garnered critical success and won awards for their roles. After a decade in New York theater, he won a Tony Award, and he and Verdon were invited to reprise their roles in the movie version of Damn Yankees! (1958).

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Film and television work

Walston had a successful movie career in addition to Damn Yankees!, beginning with South Pacific (1958), Say One for Me (1959), Tall Story, Portrait in Black and The Apartment (all in 1960), Convicts 4 (1962), Wives and Lovers and Who's Minding the Store? (both in 1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), Caprice (1967), Paint Your Wagon (1969), and The Sting (1973). He was also among many of the actors who played themselves in cameos for Robert Altman's The Player, although Walston along with several other stars, are actually in character for a movie within a movie sequence.

Walston went on to some of his greatest success on the small screen. He starred as the Martian, Uncle Martin, on My Favorite Martian from 1963 to 1966. His co-star was Bill Bixby.

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After Martian

After his starring role in Martian, he returned to beloved character actor status in television of the 1970s and 1980s, appearing as a guest star in numerous shows, such as Love, American Style, The Rookies, Mission: Impossible, Ellery Queen, The Six Million Dollar Man, Little House on the Prairie, and Bill Bixby’s The Incredible Hulk (on which he played a magician), among many others.

From 1980 to 1992, Walston starred in fourteen movies, some of which were good and some were not. Perhaps most notable was his performance as Mr. Hand in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as well as its 1986 television adaptation.

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Television comeback

In 1984, Walston played a judge on an episode of Night Court. Six years later, he would work with David E. Kelley while guest-starring on L.A. Law as a suffering father. These roles led to his work as the self-centered Judge Henry Bone on Picket Fences, which began production in 1992 for CBS. Judge Bone was originally a recurring role on the show, but Walston proved to be so popular that he was given a starring role the following year. In his late 70s, he was nominated for Emmy Awards for the first time. Walston made two appearances in Star Trek: The Next Generation and one in Star Trek: Voyager as Boothby, gardener at Starfleet Academy, San Francisco (though the last of those was not the genuine Boothby, but an alien trying out the person as part of an operation to better understand the Federation prior to possible invasion).

Walston was nominated three times for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, winning twice in 1995 and 1996 for his work on Picket Fences. Though Walston enjoyed his work in the series, Picket Fence's ratings were beginning to slip, and CBS cancelled the show after four seasons in 1996.

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Later years

After gaining popularity both as the Martian and as the judge on the small screen, his career was coming to an end when he played Grandfather Walter Addams in Addams Family Reunion (1998), the straight-to-video second sequel to the blockbuster 1991 film The Addams Family, this time starring Tim Curry as Gomez Addams and Daryl Hannah as Morticia Addams. One year later he had a featured role in the movie remake of his hit series, My Favorite Martian (1999). His final movie role was in the independent film Early Bird Special. He also appeared in an AT&T long distance TV commercial in which his dialogue implied he was Uncle Martin from Mars, looking for good rates to talk to fellow Martians living in the United States. Just before his death, his final TV guest appearance was on 7th Heaven.

Walston died on New Year's Day, 2001, in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes, just one month after his 86th birthday. He was survived by his widow, Ruth, his daughter, Katherine Ann, and two grandchildren.

Walston tended to play characters that could be described as "curmudgeonly." His Martian was constantly ridiculing the primitiveness of the earth's populace, and his attitude was exacerbated by his inability to fix his spacecraft. His forced earthbound existence clearly seemed like a Martian version of Purgatory to him—an ironic comparison as his first major role, Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees!, was an especially devilish character. He occasionally broke out of this typecast, however, most visibly as the amiable yet pessimistic Glen Bateman in the television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand in 1994.

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Credits

Walston's credits include:

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External link

es:Ray Walston nl:Ray Walston sv:Ray Walston

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