Back to Lost in Space

While I was convalescing at home with Covid, Youtube kept insisting I watch a series of interviews of the old Lost in Space stars Bill Mumy and Jonathan Harris (aka Will Robinson and Dr Smith).  

Mumy seems a particularly nice person, and a (seemingly unusual?) case of a child actor (he really did a lot of work I wasn't aware of) who grew up normal and not scarred by the experience.  Or maybe by the 1960's, there was enough care of child actors in the studio system - I mean, I guess Ron Howard turned out fine too.

Things I learned from watching these interviews:

*   Jonathan Harris was given carte blanche to re-write his lines.  This meant that Mumy would have to visit Harris's trailer to go over the re-written scripts and re-learn his cues from those in the original.  (I feared for a moment that there was going to be some shocking incident of abuse while alone with him, but no.  In fact, I checked Harris's Wikipedia page to check about his sexuality - I mean, it would hardly be surprising to learn he was gay.  But he was married and had a son, and there are quite a few websites noting that he counts high on the list of actors you thought could be gay, but apparently wasn't.)

* Mumy is an excellent voice mimic.

* Mumy worked for Alfred Hitchcock on a few episodes of his TV show, and really disliked him.

* He explained how he felt sorry for Guy Williams, his fictional father, who was given less and less to do in the show, while the Dr Smith character more or less took over.  And after the show, he went and retired in Argentina, where he was considered a hero because of his role in Zorro (!).

* His first serious girlfriend, when he was old enough to drive, was his co-star Angela Cartwright (Penny).  They remain good friends.

* I thought the anecdote in this clip was pretty funny:

*  Jonathan Harris paints a funny picture of Irwin Allen as a blustering, old style cranky Hollywood producer.