Guest Who: "Last" But Not Least

Raise your hand if you have ever even HEARD of the television series Last of the Mohicans... Not too many, I see. This 1957 syndicated program was produced by ITC and shot in Canada to pretty good effect. So many of us are familiar mostly with the 1992 Daniel Day Lewis movie, but the story had been put on screen as early as 1909 by D.W. Griffith (called Leatherstocking.) Several further incarnations followed (I recall a rather decent 1936 version with Randolph Scott and a shoddy - to me - TV version in 1977 with Steve Forrest.)

This series, which consisted of 39 episodes, starred John Hart and Lon Chaney Jr as, respectively, Hawkeye and his faithful friend Chingachgook. With Hart at 6'3" and Chaney at 6'2," they stood tall among the trees. Needless to say, the casting of Chaney as a Native American would be frowned upon (even disallowed) today, but in 1957 such a thing was utterly commonplace. The two have decent chemistry as they trod the wilderness righting wrongs, not unlike another certain pair, The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

As a matter of fact, for the 1952-1953 season of the venerable series The Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore was absent from the show during a salary dispute and his replacement was none other than John Hart! Handsome, chisel-jawed Hart started a movie career in the late-1930s and stayed quite busy in that vein until the early-1950s when he began to do TV.  Hardly a household name, he worked in countless projects up until 1982. He lived to be 91 and was survived by his wife of over 50 years. (Said wife was met while filming this series!)

Chaney's father was the famous "Man of a Thousand Faces" and he began acting in earnest himself in the early-1930s. Soon he made a name for himself portraying various famous movie monsters such as The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Frankenstein's monster and even a turn as Count Dracula. Then there was his stellar turn as Lennie in 1939's Of Mice and Men. An enduring issue with alcohol led to career issues and ill health and he died in 1973 of heart disease at age 67.

I had never heard of this TV show and probably would never have seen a frame of it in my life had I not been in a "dollar store" and found a DVD with ten episodes on it for a buck! Considering my fondness for the 1992 film and the curiosity value of it, I tossed it in my basket and it made for some time-passing viewing during the COVID-19 lockdown. Out of the ten episodes, I recognized exactly three other actors...! Everyone else was completely unfamiliar to me, though the show was well-populated.

The first actor I knew is seen in the above group photo and also in this pic. At 5'8," he was noticeably smaller in stature than some of his on-screen cohorts. Recognize him?

How about now?

This is one James Doohan in an early role, who would go from little seen guest roles on TV to more and more prolific parts on series and in movies until 1966 when he landed the role of Montgomery Scott (aka "Scotty") on Star Trek. From there, with occasional periods of typecasting pain, he would become solidified as a sci-fi icon for his role on the show and have a wildly popular catchphrase not uttered by him, but applied to him all the same: "Beam me up, Scotty!"

Chief Engineer "Scotty" was third in command of the U.S.S. Enterprise and often took the com whenever Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock beamed down to a planet's surface.

Though famous for his Scottish brogue on the series, Doohan was Canadian by birth and merely had a gift for replicating various accents during his career, especially that one. A hero not only on-screen, but off, he was hit by eight machine gun bullets during the Normandy landing on D-Day and lost one middle finger as a result. He died in 2005 from complications of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease at age eighty-five.

Next we come to the Indian brave shown here. Not the older chief, but the one standing behind him.

Psyche...! It's Doohan again! LOL This episode was filmed and aired directly after the prior one! But, really, if you weren't familiar with him, you might not catch it. In the prior episode, he was a mustached fort tradesman who had aligned himself with a dishonest man. Here, he plays a spiteful brave who is willing to cheat to have the woman he wants.

Okay, now the second actor I recognized during the viewing of this show. He's the one sporting the Mohawk-style hair on the left.

This is Michael Ansara. The 6'2" Ansara, of Syrian origin, had already by this time been in movies for more than a decade and was also starring as Cochise in the American TV series Broken Arrow. As his episode was the first entry of the show, it's possible they wanted to have a fairly well-known commodity on board.

He plays a character very much like the terrifying Magua in the book and is more than enthusiastic about going after his enemies (as well as the white woman who has caught his eye.) The third actor who I knew from these ten episodes is shown in powdered wig below with said woman. That's rubber-faced comic actor Max Showalter if you know who he is!

Throughout the '50s and early-'60s, Showalter performed under the name Casey Adams (as affixed to him by Darryl F. Zanuck) before revering to his own birth name and proceeding to play wacky types in movies like How to Murder Your Wife (1965), Lord Love a Duck (1966), 10 (1979) and Sixteen Candles (1984), his final film.

The year after this, Ansara married Barbara Eden and the two enjoyed a period of marital happiness. They had a son and they worked together when they could (he was a three-time I Dream of Jeannie guest) and even had a Vegas-style lounge act. But things unraveled badly when her 7-month pregnancy resulted in a still birth (which she, gravely and bravely, had to carry six additional weeks in order to deliver.) They split in 1974.

Ansara, seen here in a photo op with the eternal and ubiquitous Betty White, lived to be 91 when he was felled by complications from Alzheimer's disease in 2013. But, you know, he has his own Star Trek legacy...

In 1968, he appeared as one of a number of Klingons, this one called Kang, in the episode "Day of the Dove." Did you know that his wife on that episode was the only female Klingon with a speaking role (and almost the only one ever seen in the initial series?) She was played by Susan Howard, who later starred on Petrocelli and Dallas.

As a little mini-bonus, I leave you with some shots of John Hart when he was cast as a lifeguard in a 1955 season four episode of I Love Lucy. Trouble is, Lucy doesn't want to be rescued... not by him anyway!

Till next time! Stay safe and be well... Poseidon.