Warren Stevens

Warren Stevens's reputation is forever secured with fans of science fiction. He played the chief medical officer of the spaceship C57D, under the command of Leslie Nielsen's J.J. Adams, in the iconic film "Forbidden Planet"--an outer-space remake of "The Tempest" and one of the best-loved films of its kind from the 1950s. In subsequent years, Stevens was also immortalized in TV sci-fi by literally stepping into a gangster's shoes in "The Twilight Zone" and playing a creature from the Andromeda galaxy who took over the Starship Enterprise in an episode of "Star Trek." This represents only a tiny fraction of his output as an actor. He appeared on Broadway in 1948 in the play "Sundown Beach," directed by Eliza Kazan, and, in his debut film, "The Frogmen," he worked with Richard Widmark. But many of Stevens's early movie roles were undistinguished (e.g., his turn as a detective in "Gorilla at Large"). However, he did appear with Humphrey Bogart in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's classic "The Barefoot Contessa" and with Lana Turner and John Forsythe in the remake of "Madame X." After decades in the business, Stevens also built up a hefty repertoire on TV; he took a break during the '90s, but returned for a few roles in the following years, notably on a 2006 episode of the medical drama "ER." Stevens died in 2012, with more than 160 screen credits to his name.