Genre Stars Making a Big Splash At This Years Cult TV
24 May 2005
October has become somewhat of a regular month for activity on my calendar because I normally try to attend at least one event that celebrates television shows and the one event I seem to have attended the most is the Cult TV Festival. Now those of you who read my site on a regular basis will know that last years Cult TV Festival allowed me the opportunity to interview actor Vaughn Armstrong, who by and large with the exception of Colin Baker and a few other folks was the only person thererepresenting a Sci Fi show. This year's event though has much more on offer to fans of the science fiction genre, and this year also boasts more behind the scenes people as well as another guest who was involved with Star Trek.
In fact quite a few genre shows are covered at this event ranging from the 'The X Files' to Highlander the series. One thing that makes Cult TV so special is the mere fact that it does not try to be a Buffy Convention or a Star Trek Convention or even a Sci Fi Convention. The range of taste that this event covers goes beyond the demographics that US and British TV Execs seem to relish in. The event covers sit coms, Cult Television Presenters as well as Sci Fi, basically it covers shows that in their time were ground breaking and bold enough to be different, unlike the soap operas and game shows which have always been a mainstay on Television.
This year's list of guest is an impressive one, and headlining for fans of Star Trek and The X Files is Kim Darby who is well known in Star Trek circles for having portrayed the title role in 'Miri' during Star Trek's first season back in 1966. Darby also got to work with the legendary Cowboy actor John Wayne in the movie 'True Grit'. In recent years Darby popped up again on the Cult TV Radar portraying Agent Mulders Sister in ‘The X Files'.
Also popping up is actor John Saxon who has the distinction of being the 2 nd actor to portray the role of Dylan Hunt in the second attempt at a pilot for Gene Roddenberry's 'Genesis project' which was titled ‘Planet Earth'. The first actor to portray Dylan Hunt was Alex Cord who played the role in 'Genesis II' which aired a year before ‘Planet Earth' was made. The character of Hunt in these two shows was really the template for Kevin Sorbo's character in Andromeda. In addition to this Saxon also played the role of Major Frederick Sloan in ‘The Six Million Dollar Man' the actors likeness was later used for the toy range based on the series for the Maskatron doll, this role also carried through into ‘The Bionic Woman' . Other guest roles include parts in ‘The A – Team, Kung Fu, Starsky and Hutch' and many more. Some fans may also remember Saxon for his wonderfully over the top performance as Sador in the Science Fiction romp ‘Battle beyond the Stars' which starred Richard Thomas aka John Boy from TV's ‘The Waltons'.
Also on the list of personalities is a well known costume designer who has made his mark on many Hollywood movies as well as TV shows . Jean–Pierre Dorléac was linked with a great many Hollywood TV shows over the years some of which include the original ‘Battlestar Galactica' series as well as designing the costumes for ‘Buck Rogers in the 25 th Century' . The costume designer actually won an Emmy award for his work on Battlestar for the costumes he designed for the episode ‘The Man With Nine Lives' which guest starred the late song and dance legend Fred Astaire . Dorléac also worked on the various different costumes used in the classic 1990's time travel series ‘Quantum Leap' .
Also being served this year are fans of classic British Sci Fi. Appearing at the Festival will be the British Actor Michael Keating who came to prominence in the Terry Nation produced Sci Fi series 'Blake's 7' . Keating has a long and distinguished career in both television and theatre. He also has the distinction of being the only actor to appear in all 52 episodes of ‘Blake's 7' playing the small time thief Villa . The actor has also made prominent guest appearances in shows as diverse as Dr Who , Casualty , ‘ London 's Burning' and the classic 80's satire ‘Yes Minister'.
Another big name behind the scenes of many genre shows is director Brian Grant who has directed shows as far ranging as Highlander: The Raven , She Wolf Of London , Bugs and the recent hit horror series Hex . Also amongst grants most recent work is a credit for directing an episode of the new 'Dr Who' series which currently stars Christopher Eccleston. The episode that Grant directed is called 'The Long Game' and only aired in the UK a couple of weeks ago.
In fact one show which seems to be getting a lot of service this year is 'Dr Who'. Michael Sheard will be at the festival spreading his usual brand of wit good humour and outright sheardy love. The actor when outside of 'Dr Who' is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the strict teacher Mr Bronson from the children's television series 'Grange Hill'. Among his other achievements in TV and Movies are numerous roles, but many fans of the original Star Wars movies will remember Michael for his legendary death scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back . The actor also boasts the distinction of having portrayed Adolph Hitler so many times that even he has forgotten, the last time of course was in the 3 rd Indiana Jones movie ‘The Last Crusade' where he had a memorable scene signing Harrison Fords Grail book. Michael is an absolute pleasure to meet and a truly enjoyable person to spend time with at these types of events. I met the actor at SF Ball earlier this year and he has many interesting humorous stories to share about his varied career.
However the ultimate 'Dr Who' guest appearing at Cult TV this year is actor William Russell who was in the very first series and remained a regular for a couple of years playing the role of school teacher and one of the Doctors first assistants Ian Chesterton who along with Barbara and the Doctors grand daughter Susan helped make Dr Who into the iconic series that it remains today.
A full comprehensive list of the guest appearing at this year's festival which includes Bond Girl Tanya Roberts and 'Dynasty's' Pamela Sue Martin as well as many more can be found here at the Cult TV website. Please note that all money made from this event goes to the aid of UNICEF.
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