The Marvelous Mr. Mumy

It is not the first time I have remarked in these pages about the pleasant cognitive dissonance I have experienced when either intentionally, or accidentally, I have a passing real life connection with an actor or actress whose television show I watched when I was a child. We were a family of three in a one-bedroom apartment just off Mt. Eden Avenue, in the Bronx in the 1950s and 1960s. We had an efficiency kitchen at the end of the living room, which during the daytime, my parents covered with camoflaging drapes. The drapes were only open when we were alone in the apartment so as to be able to watch the black and white television that was ensconced in a homemade cabinet along with the stove, the refrigerator, and the kitchen sink. I can assure you that when I watched say, Superman, or Zorro (last episode in 1961), Green Acres, Lost in Space or Mission Impossible, or Mister Ed, Star Trek, and reruns of I Love Lucy, it was not even a spark in my mind that one day I would be living in Los Angeles and I might actually find my life intersecting with people who were part of those shows. It was not in the realm of possibility. My mother, who has been dead since 1974, was quite fond, for example, of Ricardo Montalban, whose name she consistently said incorrectly Ricardo Montalblan. A bit more than a decade later, when I went to Mass in Los Angeles, at a Church that was not, like Good Shepherd known for Hollywood attendees, there was Mr. Montalblan, sorry, Montalban, a parishioner, who once actually complimented me on my lectoring ("You have very good diction," he said in his most soothing deep exotic yet car commercial tone, tapping me approvingly on the shoulder). In that same church, I would see, over the years, Danny Thomas, Vincent Price, Coral Browne, Christopher Hewett (We served as lectors together. I used to drive him to his West Hollywood Apartment so our contact was a bit more than passing), Peter Boyle (when he was in Los Angeles), Michael Jeter, and others. I would run into them in the supermarket, then Mayfair on Santa Monica Boulevard, George Maharis, James Shigeta, for example. A child's life far away from the dream factory, the fantasy observed on a little box, suddenly collided with the real lives of the people who created the fantasy. 

I am truly a fan of many of these folks, but not a fan-a-tic. As much as I love Star Trek, for example, and know a great deal about TOS (the original series) and its subsequent iterations, or other shows, I am not generally given to conventions, and the culture surrounding them. No critique do I have at all. It just isn't me. If someone I respect, and like from afar is doing a play or an appearance, I surely might go and with enthusiasm. So, yes, I have followed Pierce Brosnan's career for years, since, I hate to admit it, the Manions of America, and I suppose, truth be told, when it comes to him, I have more a fan-a-tic in me than a simple fan. But for the most part, lately in particular, I sense a kinship with those actors and actresses of the early days. Behind the productions that I saw in the middle of my growing and becoming me, there were real people living their lives, and then one day, in passing, our paths crossed, and there is something, I don't know, magical about that obvious ordinary discovery. A six degrees of separation thing, maybe, or in this case, from the Bronx to Hollywood, a million degrees of separation that one day wasn't. One day, a moment in each of our lives was the same moment. 

I am not quite in my dotage, as I still seem to have faculties, mental and physical, but I am definitely at that stage which one would call nostalgic. I find myself looking at old pictures, and discussing events of the past with friends, and that kinship I mentioned, I think it is part and parcel of the nostalgia. 

So when an announcement hit Facebook that Bill (formerly Billy) Mumy would be making an appearance at the LAX Westin, to show an episode of Lost in Space and perform some of his music, nostalgia hit me with a good sized thump. I have been following Mr. Mumy on Facebook because I just like his posts, because I used to watch the show, I remembered two scary episodes he did of the original Twilight Zone in which he was spectacular, and because he was born the same year I was. I mentioned it to a couple of friends, one of whom was available, who actually was born on the same DAY as was Mr. Mumy and who like me, has that baby boomer fondness for old time TV. We might have been born and lived on different coasts, but me, Andrew, and Bil(ly) were children together, right? 

So I got tickets. We didn't go for the autographs. I am more interested in memory and photos than a signature.

I felt like I was watching home movies of a friend and listening to the music and lyrics of a thoughtful friend. It was in a small room, the kind you attend during a lecture for your profession, or continuing education before it became nearly entirely remote. There were maybe 40 to 50 attendees and it became clear quickly that many of these individuals had been at other, maybe many other, versions of this event. And that Lost in Space isn't something that anyone under 60 knows a thing about.  During the Q and A, Bill seemed to know the names of most of the questioners. It is fun, beyond fun, is hearing the behind the scenes of any television series that I followed. Some of what he said, I had heard before, but when I asked a question, about the well known fact that the then lesser known actor Jonathan Harris took the series focus away from the two stars of the show, Guy Williams and June Lockhart, and whether he was aware of it as a child (he was), I was happy to hear that the real man behind the fictional Zorro, took the reality of Hollywood business fairly well. He had a job. He did his job and he was content to receive the same paycheck whatever happened to the creative direction of the show. And after all, after the first few episodes, the show became campier and campier due to the efforts, which he enjoyed thoroughly, of the Bronx born Jonathan Harris. With the onset of the internet, I had long ago discovered that the affected accent and pseudo European manner of Mr. Harris was a creation of a Bronx boy. Googling does not reveal what part of the Bronx generated the actor who bantered with a robot (all improvisation), as I do, but with far less alliteration, but by the time I was born in the 1950s, Mr. Harris had long ago escaped to a new ironic life in Hollywood. And, by the way, Guy Williams was also born in the Bronx, Washington Heights I understand. He would ultimately live in Argentina and was beloved and feted for his earlier role in Zorro, which must have assuaged any lingering effect of having been overshadowed by Mr. Harris. 

We hear how rare it is that a person who was a child actor seems well adjusted. There are only a handful, and it surely appears that Mr. Mumy is among them. He clearly enjoys his legacy, but he did not sit still after Lost in Space. And his parents protected him by investing his money so that he had financial freedom to pursue that which he always loved. Although it may not have offered comparable fame, his music is very much part of his being and he shares it with joy. In fact, after Lost In Space, in the late 1970s, he and a childhood friend, also a musician, the late Robert Haimer started this twosome called Barnes and Barnes and cut a novelty song, Fish Heads. This I had not known about, and after seeing the video produced with the help of a then unknown actor, the late Bill Paxton that followed the song (which Dr. Demento played and ended up in the top 100, no. 57, of the top music videos. And he earned money from that as well. The video was one of presentations in the room, and I will admit, while I am delighted for Mr. Mumy that it opened doors for him, I am thinking maybe it is more for a guy with "excess energy" (as Mumy described himself and his then partner) than for a girl to enjoy. Still I just like the normalcy of what he did when he was still in his relative formative years and which appears to have contributed to his appealing persona. 

What I also loved is that his wife of 40 years, Eileen, attended him, protectively. When he was doing his Q and A before the mini-concert, his wife, sitting a chair to my left was restless, crossing and uncrossing her legs and trying to get his attention, and then I heard her recommending to him in a most maternally corrective way that he take no more questions to preserve his voice for his singing. He was calm in a kind offhand dismissal of her concern, yet through the event I sensed his appreciation of her, and one of the songs he offered was a tribute to her. I mumbled something to her about her care for him. My companion for the event thought it was being controlling. I suppose. I would have done the same thing I think if I had been in a similar position, and people have called me controlling, but mostly I thought it was evidence of a long relationship that has evolved into a unity in which both remain individuals.   

I have heard Mr. Mumy on his Facebook page, and I like his style of rockish, folk. I hear he still lives in Laurel Canyon where lots of music was made back in the 60s and 70s. I came to LA in the 1980s and the Canyon to me manages still to be magical. 

And by the way, it is not like Bill Mumy hasn't continued in TV. He sure has. He had a long run on the series, "Babylon Five". And he definitely was in one of my favorite Deep Space Nine Episodes, with significantly shorter hair and looking quite handsome in the 1990s. He continues to be a working actor to be appreciated. And a daughter has followed in his footsteps. 

I imagine that Bill Mumy has to have an earned pride in the fact that he was part of early television history. And movie history while we are at it. He was in one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies and he was delightful, a six or seven year old in love with Brigitte Bardot.  I know I feel a certain pride for him and a little bit of a Twilight Zone goose bump of how life intersects us with one another. Bill often uses the line (and he has a podcast using the phrase) from the Zone episode, "It's a Good Life" which he did when he was six years old (I was at Mt. St. Ursula Academy in first grade; there's a contrast). In the episode, little cherubically faced Anthony Fremont, had very uncherubically expressed psychic powers. If you crossed him, like the normal telling a child what to do, he could send you into the fields (essentially kill you) or, as in the case of one of his parent's guests, turn you into a Jack in the Box. (That was one of the most scary moments I recall as a child). So, in order to avoid such a fate, anytime, good or bad that Anthony used those powers, they would say, "That was real good Anthony, Real Good".  

Well, Mr. Mumy, spending a couple of hours with you and your other fans, it was indeed, "Real good."

"Oh, the pain, the pain. . .!
The delightful Mr. Harris.