Seven Things to Know About Robert Lansing

1. Robert Lansing was born Robert Howell Brown, but had to change his name when he joined the Actors' Equity Association because another actor was named Robert Brown. According to Allan T. Duffin's The 12 O'Clock High Logbook, he took his last name from Lansing, Michigan, as he was about to board a bus to that city.

2. After studying at the Actors Studio, Lansing made his Broadway debut in 1951 in Stalag 17. He worked on the stage, in live television, and made his film debut in the title role of 4D Man (1959). His next movie was The Pusher (1960), which Harold Robbins adapted from an Ed McBain novel. He played tough Manhattan detective Steve Carella, a role that he would reprise in the TV series 87th Precinct (1961-62). Based on McBain's gritty crime novels, the series is well regarded now, but was cancelled by NBC after a single season. Gena Rowlands portrayed Carella's deaf wife Teddy in four episodes.

Lansing on 12 O'Clock High.

3. Lansing's most successful TV role was probably Brigadier General Frank Savage in 12 O'Clock High, which debuted on ABC in 1964. However, after one season, his character was written out of the show. In a TV Guide article, executive producer Quinn Martin blamed ABC's decision to move the show from Friday at ten o'cock to 7:30 on Monday: "ABC is very high on Lansing, and asked me to find another series for him. They said they want him for a 10 P.M. show. Had we remained at 10 P.M., Bob would have continued." Lansing seemed to take the decision in stride, commenting to TV: "I can't hate ABC. Hating a network would be like hating Dodger Stadium...I can't be mad at Quinn either. He says it was the network's decision, and I have no evidence to make me doubt him."

4.  In 1966, Robert Lansing was back on TV in the half-hour drama The Man Who Never Was. He played spy Peter Murphy, who assumes the identity of murdered millionaire Mark Wainwright. Murphy looks just like Wainwright and his impersonation convinces everyone but the dead man's wife Eva (Dana Wynter). Fortunately for Murphy, Eva is willing to go along with the masquerade--especially since her husband was trying to swindle her. Sadly, ABC cancelled The Man Who Never Was after 21 episodes. Three episodes were edited together and released overseas as the theatrical film as Danger Has Two Faces.

5. According to Alan Schneider's The American Theatre Reader, playwright Edward Albee wanted Robert Lansing for the role of Nick in the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? However, Lansing was never signed due to a disagreement over the billing. The role eventually went to George Grizzard; George Segal played Nick in the 1966 film adaptation.

With feline friend as Gary Seven.

6. During the second season of the original Star Trek, Robert Lansing guest starred as Gary Seven, a human sent by the race of another planet to save Earth from destruction. The episode, which was titled "Assignment: Earth," was a backdoor pilot for a TV series that would have starred Lansing as Gary Seven and Teri Garr as his assistant. The original script by Art Wallace and Gene Roddenberry had nothing to do with the Enterprise and its crew. However, when Roddenberry couldn't get a network interested in the proposed series, he and Wallace rewrote it for Star Trek.

7. Robert Lansing was married three times. His first wife was actress Emily McLaughlin, who played nurse Jessie Brewer on ABC's General Hospital for 28 years. Lansing's second wife was starlet Gari Hardy, whom was once described as "the new Ann-Margret" (though she was blonde). When they married in 1969, Hardy was 21 and Lansing was 41. They had a daughter, but divorced after two years. Lansing married Ann Pivar in 1981 and they remained together until his death in 1994. Incidentally, Gari Hardy married another older man, Jack Ryan, who designed the Barbie doll for Mattel and who was one of Zsa Zsa Gabor's husbands.

Robert Lansing as The Man Who Never Was

Robert Lansing as Murphy.

With an enemy agent hot on his trail, spy Peter Murphy (Robert Lansing) ducks into a late-night Berlin bar. As he ponders his next move, he hears a loud drunkard and turns around to see a man who could be his twin. Murphy goes up to the building's roof and watches the man with his face leave the bar--only to be shot dead in Murphy's place.

When an exhausted Murphy makes his exit, he is mistaken for the dead man. Murphy's superior, Colonel Forbes (Murray Hamilton), soon learns about the switch and immediately recognizes the potential to turn it into an advantage. The dead man was Mark Wainwright, a millionaire playboy with access to resources and people which could be a boon for the intelligence agency. For his part, Murphy is reluctant to assume Wainwright's identity, realizing the challenges of pulling off the ultimate deception. The situation is greatly complicated by the fact that Wainwright was married.

Dana Wynter as Eva.

It doesn't take Eva Wainwright (Dana Wynter) long to figure out that Murphy isn't her husband. But, in a delightful twist, she has her own reasons for going along with the deception. Can Peter and Eva pull it off? Can Peter trust Eva as he tries to live another man's life while doubling as a spy?

This was the premise of The Man Who Never Was, a 1966-67 espionage TV series created by John Newland (One Step Beyond). Its network, ABC, hoped to cash in on the spy craze that was still going strong on television (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy) and in movies (the Bond films, Our Man Flint). However, unlike most of those TV shows and films, The Man Who Never Was opted for more realistic adventures. Peter Murphy never relies on gadgets and tries to avoid violence if he can (though that's not always the case).

Although the series is unavailable on DVD, you can view a handful of episodes on YouTube, though the video quality is subpar. Fortunately, four of the first five half-hour episodes were edited into a theatrical movie called Danger Has Two Faces and it's available from 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives. 

Murray Hamilton as Peter's boss.

The film's first half (consisting of the initial two episodes) is excellent, with Peter and Eva feeling each other out and then trying to pull off the incredible masquerade. The second episode ends with Eva providing an alibi for Peter, who has just killed an enemy agent in self-defense. It's the act that seals their unwritten agreement.

The second half of Danger Has Two Faces consists of two unrelated episodes. One involves plotting the escape of a priest who wants to defect and the other deals with uncovering the person responsible for the deaths of two U.S. agents. Both episodes are well done if a little conventional. It helps that the show was shot in Europe and boasts fabulous scenery. However, there's not enough of the relationship between Peter and Eva, which worked so well in the first two episodes.

Lansing and Wynter facing danger.

Lansing, who had been replaced as the lead on Twelve O'Clock High after the 1965 season, is perfectly cast as a spy with a unique identity crisis. And you couldn't ask for a better female protagonist than the elegant Dana Wynter, whose calmness is the perfect complement to Lansing's intensity.

The Man Who Never Was was cancelled after 20 episodes. I suspect the half-hour format was part of the problem. It just wasn't long enough to develop the plots. Plus, its time slot rival on CBS was Green Acres, which finished the 1966-67 season as the sixth most watched television series. Still, I'd love to see The Man Who Never Was released on DVD and, with Coronet Blue finally getting a DVD release in 2017, there's still hope.

And here's a scene from Danger Has Two Faces, courtesy of the Cafe's YouTube channel:

Star Trek: Is Gary Seven a Hero or Villain?

Robert Lansing as Gary Seven.

While on a Federation time travel mission to conduct research about Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew inadvertently intercepts a transporter beam. Their newest passenger appears to be human and calls himself Gary Seven (Robert Lansing). He claims that he is a human from the current time period, but was sent by the race of another planet to save Earth from destruction. Seven cautions Captain Kirk about delaying his mission and potentially altering history. Mr. Spock states the obvious when he tells Kirk that it's "a most difficult decision."

Teri Garr as Roberta.

While Kirk ponders what to do, Seven and his telepathic cat Isis escape from security and teleport to Manhattan. Seven discovers that his fellow agents on Earth have died in a car accident. Prior to that, they employed a secretary named Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr), who thought she was working for encyclopedia researchers. Seven gradually reveals that his mission is to sabotage a rocket carrying a nuclear warhead into space. But can he accomplish the mission without his fellow agents and will Kirk and company try to stop him?

"Assignment: Earth" was the last episode of season two of the original Star Trek television series. It was a "backdoor pilot," meaning that it was intended to launch a new TV show starring Lansing and Garr. Kirk and Spock are the only two Star Trek characters with any significant screen time and their involvement in the plot is pretty limited. 

That's understandable since they played no role in the original script for the proposed half-hour Assignment: Earth series. The script reveals a slightly different premise from the Star Trek episode. In it, Seven is a man from the 24th century sent back to Earth to battle a race of shape-shifting aliens called the Omegans. Seven's cover business is a private detective agency. Roberta joins him as his assistant. Isis is one of the aliens and Seven doesn't have a cat. He does have the multi-functional pen, dubbed a "servo," that he uses in Star Trek.

Mr. Spock and Isis.

As a Star Trek episode, "Assignment: Earth" is moderately entertaining. Its biggest strength is Robert Lansing, who makes Seven into a calm, unflappable hero who still wears a suit while climbing around a rocket launch pad. As Roberta, Teri Garr plays the kind of ditzy blonde that would stereotype her in many of her films. It's hard to believe that Roberta is supposed to have a high IQ. She has little to do in the plot and it's hard to imagine her providing anything other than comic relief in a weekly series.

The integration of the original pilot into Star Trek is also a little sloppy. When Seven is thrown into the brig, no one searches his body and finds the servo. That's pretty poor security! Also, rarely has Captain Kirk been so indecisive. The only conflict in the episode is whether Gary Seven is good or bad and it takes Kirk until the final seconds--when a warhead is about to cause World War III--to make his determination.

While I can't imagine Assignment: Earth lasting long as a weekly series (especially in a half-hour format), it has become a popular Star Trek episode. It has spawned a comic book series, novels, action figures, trading cards, and even a short video on YouTube with Roberta doing office work (sort of). If you want to learn more about Assignment: Earth, then check out this website devoted to it.

Victoria Vetri as Isis.

By the way, in the closing scene of Star Trek, Isis transforms herself into a beautiful woman briefly. She is played by Playboy playmate Angela Dorian, who changed her name to Victoria Vetri and starred in Hammer's When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). She also appeared in Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), one of Roger Ebert's favorite "B" (no pun intended) movies.