Seven Things to Know About Dr. Miguelito Loveless from "The Wild Wild West"

1. Michael Dunn appeared as the diabolical genius Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless in ten episodes of The Wild Wild West. His first appearance was in the third episode, "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth," which was shown in October 1965. That same year, Michael Dunn appeared in Ship of Fools and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His last appearance as Dr. Loveless was in "The Night of Miguelito's Revenge," which aired during the show's fourth and final season in 1968.

2. Dr. Loveless's original scheme (in "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth") was to take back land (well, the state of California) which had been stolen from his mother. He planned to use the land to "build a kingdom where children can grow, be strong and happy...a world without pain." As the series progressed, though, Loveless became a megalomaniacal genius who wanted revenge on society as a whole.

Phoebe Dorin and Michael Dunn.

3. Dr. Loveless was assisted by the lovely Antoinette (Phoebe Dorin) in six episodes and the giant Voltaire (Richard Kiel) in three episodes. Michael Dunn and Phoebe Dorin had performed a nightclub act together prior to The Wild Wild West. When series creator Michael Garrison saw their act, he thought Michael Dunn would be a fabulous villain and signed both performers to be guest stars. Dunn and Dorin frequently performed musical duets on The Wild Wild West.

4. Dr. Loveless's beverage of choice was Cognac La Grande Marque, as revealed in the season four episode "The Night of Miguelito's Revenge." That should come as no surprise since Napoleon--another height-challenged "villain"--was also a connoisseur of brandy.

Loveless as Robin Hood.

5. When Dr. Loveless meets James T. West for the first time, he comments to one of his colleagues (Leslie Parrish): "Ah, Greta, you've done what I was unable to do. You've brought Mr. West--but with one serious oversight. You've brought him alive."

6. The highly-intelligent Dr. Loveless created many clever gadgets, but his most devious invention was a drug planted in Jim West's shaving cream. It apparently caused Jim to go bonkers and fatally shoot Artemus in cold blood. Fortunately, the incident turned out to be a hallucination caused by the drug!

Paul Williams as Junior.

7. Michael Dunn died in 1973 at age 38. Thus, in the 1979 made-for-TV reunion movie The Wild Wild West Revisited, it's revealed that Dr. Loveless had died. The new villain is his son Miguelito Loveless, Jr., played by Paul Williams. Kenneth Branagh played Dr. Arliss Loveless in the 1999 theatrical film Wild Wild West, but the less said about that, the better. By the way, when The Wild Wild West reruns first debuted on TNT, they began with a marathon of all ten Dr. Loveless episodes; Robert Conrad served as host.

This post is part of the Classic TV Villain Blogathon hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Be sure to click here to view the schedule featuring other fabulous classic TV villains!

The Case of the Unlikeliest Charlie Chan

Ross Martin as Charlie Chan.

Mystery TV series were on the rise again in 1970 with NBC preparing to launch its NBC Mystery Movie franchise. That umbrella series would feature sleuths who were rumpled and sly (Columbo), married to mischievous spouses (McMillan & Wife), and transported from the West to the East (McCloud). All of which may explain why NBC was interested in a potential TV series about an Asian American police detective--and a famous one at that.

Produced in 1970, the made-for-TV movie The Return of Charlie Chan (aka Happiness Is a Warm Clue) was intended to introduce Earl Derr Biggers' venerable detective to a new generation. However, it appears to have encountered trouble from the outset with the unlikely casting of Ross Martin in the title role. The actor had amassed a reasonable amount of popularity as Robert Conrad's sidekick (and master of disguises) Artemus Gordon in The Wild Wild West (1965-69). He seemed poised for a series of his own.

It wasn't the first time a non-Asian actor had played Charlie Chan. Warner Oland, arguably the screen's most well-known Chan, was born in Sweden and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. However, Oland's films were made in a different era. There's no evidence that NBC shelved The Return of Charlie Chan due to concerns over a casting backlash. However, the network did promote the film in 1971 and then mysteriously decided not to broadcast it. It was eventually shown in Great Britain in 1973, but didn't make its U.S. premiere until 1979.

Suspect Richard Haydn and Martin.

For the record, Ross Martin isn't a bad Charlie Chan once one realizes he's not playing Artemus in another disguise. And The Return of Charlie Chan is a decent mystery about a Greek business tycoon, married to a younger woman, who narrowly survives a murder attempt. (I'm assuming any resemblance to Aristotle Onassis was intentional!) He convinces the "incorruptible, infallible, and unfortunately retired" Charlie Chan to take on the task of protecting him during his family's pleasure cruise off the coast of Vancouver. Charlie, accompanied by his daughter Doreen and No. 8 son Peter, makes little headway toward unmasking the culprit...until one of the tycoon's employees is found murdered in his stateroom.

There is no shortage of suspects, to include a physician, a winegrower, and an international playboy who may be a thief. All of their alibis eventually crumple under the power of Charlie's deductive reasoning, which still seems sharp despite ten years as a pineapple farmer. And, yes, Mr. Chan still offers wise sayings, such as: "Even a hair casts a shadow."

Leslie Nielsen as a Greek tycoon.

The film's "special guest star" is Leslie Nielsen, who has a grand time overplaying the role of the "richest man in the world." It's interesting that most people today think of Nielsen as a comedian because of his success in Airplane! and The Naked Gun  movies. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the busiest actors on television and in films. He played everything from a police detective in The Bold Ones to the captain in The Poseidon Adventure to the voice of a powerful, but never seen, movie executive in the TV series Bracken's World.

Ross Martin never got his own TV series, though he remained in demand as an actor in the 1970s. He guest-starred on shows like The Love Boat, Hawaii Five-O, and Vega$. He provided voices for several cartoon series and even reprised Artemus Gordon for two made-for-TV movies. Ross Martin died in 1981 after suffering a heart attack following a game of tennis.

Seven Things to Know About Ross Martin

Martin and Robert Conrad.

1. Ross Martin is best remembered, of course, for playing Secret Service agent Artemus Gordon in the Western TV series The Wild Wild West (1965-69). During the show's fourth season, he broke his leg on the set while filming the episode "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary." While he recovered, Charles Aidman and William Schallert portrayed partners to Robert Conrad's James T. West.

2. Later during the show's fourth and final season, Ross Martin suffered a heart attack. Despite his limited appearances that season, he was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series.

Martin as Artemus in disguise.

3. Since Artemus Gordon was a master of disguises, Ross Martin donned make-up to portray dozens of different "characters" in the series. In the book, A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews with 62 Filmmakers, make-up artist Kenneth Chase recalls that Martin frequently spent two hours in the make-up chair for one disguise (and hated waiting for his scenes to be filmed).

Martin in Experiment in Terror.

4. The Wild, Wild West wasn't the first time that Ross Martin played a character who employed disguises. He portrayed a killer who impersonates a woman in Blake Edwards' Experiment in Terror (1962).

5. In Edwards' TV series Mr. Lucky (1959-60), he starred as Andamo, the charismatic "business associate" to the title gambler played by John Vivyan. Indeed, Ross was a Blake Edwards' favorite; he also appeared in The Great Race as Baron Rolfe Von Stuppe. One of Martin's fellow actors in that film was Peter Falk; they later played adversaries in "Suitable for Framing," the best episode in the the first season of Columbo.

Martin as Charlie Chan.

6. Interestingly, Martin starred as the title character in the made-for-TV movie The Return of Charlie Chan (aka Happiness Is a Warm Clue). The pilot for a TV series, it was an ill-fated project from the start. Made in 1973, it was shelved due to complaints about a Caucasian actor playing Earl Derr Biggers' detective. (For the record, Charlie Chan was a Hawaiian detective and was played most famously by Swedish actor Warner Oland). Martin's Chan movie was eventually broadcast in 1978.

7. Ross Martin suffered a fatal heart attack after a game of tennis in 1981. He was 61. He and Robert Conrad had recently starred in two Wild Wild West "reunion movies": The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979) and More Wild Wild West (1980). According to some sources, there was discussion about reviving the TV series, but that ended with Martin's untimely death.