(via wikipedia.org / blogspot.com)
A few weeks ago I caught Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on TV, which is a movie I’ve seen numerous times, though have never considered a favorite. Throughout this most recent viewing, I kept thinking, “You know…Keir Dullea was a really attractive and interesting actor. Why did his popularity seem to pan out?” Besides Space Odyssey, I think movie fans would recognize him from Bob Clark’s cult horror flick Black Christmas (1974) half a decade later. If you’re invested in classic film and old Hollywood, you’ve probably also seen his work in Frank Perry’s groundbreaking character drama David & Lisa (1962) and Otto Preminger’s mystery-thriller Bunny Lake is Missing (1965). These are the four films I basically knew Keir from, and it wasn’t until this past month that I realized his casting in 2001 was a complete anomaly. In fact, I weirdly never noticed before how his rather subdued acting as Astronaut David Bowman is the polar opposite of his performances in his other famous films. If you run through Keir’s career, he was typically cast as emotionally disturbed young men [i.e. David & Lisa] or unhinged antagonists [ex. Bunny Lake and Black Christmas], despite having very traditionally handsome features and an endearing personality. Kind of the inverse of someone like Anthony Perkins, who started out as a matinee idol before switching gears following the instant success of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). It’s funny to think this could have also been the case with Keir, but even his first on-screen acting job was playing the German pilot in Marc Daniels’ 1960 TV adaptation of Mrs. Miniver. Whereas Tony began his career as the love interest of starlets like Jean Simmons and Shirley MacLaine in George Cukor’s biopic The Actress (1953) and Joseph Anthony’s romcom The Matchmaker (1958), and as the son of Gary Cooper in William Wyler’s Civil War epic Friendly Persuasion (1956).
Paramount wasted no time making Tony their next [and ultimately final] heartthrob of the latter-day old Hollywood era. When he wasn’t lighting up the big screen and covering fan magazines, the performer also recorded four pop albums that fit in nicely with his musical theatre sensibilities. This might be one of the bigger differences between Tony and Keir. After David & Lisa received rave reviews and the up-and-comer won multiple Most Promising Male Newcomer awards, Keir actually turned down contracts with both MGM and Disney, preferring to have the freedom to prioritize plays as much as films. In retrospect, this was probably a wise move since MGM was about to implode during this period, and Disney would have restricted him to family friendly comedies and musicals. On the other hand, Keir has also talked about how despite the good reception of David & Lisa, he originally ended up getting B-movies and TV gigs. It wasn’t until Bunny Lake is Missing that things started really happening for Keir in cinema, and it was that movie which evidently led to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is very funny to me something about an actor playing weirdos and jerks made Kubrick go, “Yes, I need this guy to play the most ordinary, normal male lead in sci-fi history.”
(United Artists)
This is dissimilar to how Hitchcock intentionally cast Tony as one of the most iconic movie villains of all time, Norman Bates, so his boyish cuteness would throw viewers off when the final twist in Psycho occurs. [On a side note, it’s amusing to think there was probably a brief moment in 1960 where movie fans could have gotten whiplash from seeing Tony play a romantic lead Joshua Logan’s college set romcom Tall Story right around the same time Psycho was released in theaters.] But anyways, big time offers still didn’t rake in for Keir even after leading a Stanley Kubrick film, and he instead just picked up where he left off as basically a good looking character actor. Unlike David & Lisa though, modern sci-fi and movie fans might be surprised to learn the initial reactions to Space Odyssey were actually pretty divisive, and the acclaim gradually grew over time [along with being embraced by hippies for recreational reasons]. While Psycho was a huge hit, Tony also realized very quickly his public image was about to be completely made over. So rather than being pigeonholed, he bought out his Paramount contract and went to Europe for a few years. This included co-starring in the May-December melodramas of Anatole Litvak’s Goodbye Again (1961) and Jules Dassin’s Phaedra (1962), which amusingly increased the ‘mommy issues’ he became associated with from playing Norman.
(Warner Bros)
Though Keir never really established a legacy as an A-list leading man, not all was lost and some of the high points of his career followed 2001; such as starring in the original, successful 1969-71 Broadway production of Leonard Gershe’s ‘Butterflies are Free,’ and revivals of classic plays like Tennessee Williams’ ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ (1974 and 2013), William Inge’s ‘Bus Stop’ (1976) and Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘The Sound of Music’ (1993). Like Tony, Keir even recorded a self-titled pop record in 1970 that showed off his decent vocal chops. His familiarity as the heavy and crazy characters gradually died down during the late 1970s, and over time he began occasionally popping up in more sci-fi features as semi-referential Space Odyssey stunt casting; most notably a cameo appearance in Peter Hyams’ sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). After spending the late 1980s and 1990s performing strictly on stage, Keir returned to acting on screen in between theatre productions in 2000. Similarly, once Tony went back to Hollywood by the late 1960s, he seemed to somewhat embrace his typecasting as both nutcases and men with lifelong issues with their mothers; naturally including Richard Franklin’s Psycho II (1983), Perkins’ own directed Psycho III (1986) and Mick Garris’ Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990). Still, Noel Black’s Pretty Poison (1968), Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 (1970) and Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (1974) are a few of the better films of his post-Psycho career, and Paul Bogart’s fantasy-musical Evening Primrose (1966) is one of his best moments as a romantic lead. Like Keir, Tony saved some of his more memorable performances for stage, such as the original Broadway runs of Neil Simon’s ‘The Star-Spangled Girl’ (1966-67), Peter Shaffer’s ‘Equus’ (1975-76) and Bernard Slade’s ‘Romantic Comedy’ (1979-80).
Something I’ve wondered about Tony is how much he would have accepted becoming a regular figure on the fan con/Q&A circuit if he hadn’t died from AIDS in 1992. Before the 2010s, appearing at fan conventions was seen as something B-list/C-list celebs and has-beens participated in. But now it’s become just another stop on press tours no matter what you’re promoting in film, TV, comics and other cultural ventures. Even by the time of his premature death at 60, Tony was already doing retrospectives and appearances at selected horror cons to honor both Psycho and Norman’s character; and sadly, I think there’s a pretty low chance he would have had some kind of huge comeback in his later years if he lived longer. Both Keir and his 2001 co-star Gary Lockwood are fairly transparent about how consistently attending panels have been a part of their lives since the late 1990s. While this might seem a little embarrassing compared to superstars, I think going to events like these is a good reminder of how it’s the fans and audiences who keep an artist relevant and give them longevity, more so than the producers and studio execs.
During the 2017 DVD commentary for Bunny Lake, writer Lem Dobbs mentions how hard it is to pin down why an actor is typecast. It could be because the viewer is attached to the actor’s most famous character, or it could because of a certain tick that makes casting directors push the performer into specific roles. I think it’s pretty clear Tony was using acting jobs as a way to cope with his unhappy upbringing with his own mother and his lifelong conflict about his sexuality. One hopes it was worth it since even today there are regular memes and jokes about Norman Bates and how “It isn’t a Tony Perkins movie unless he mentions his difficult mother.” For Keir, it’s a little less complicated, and he generally thinks characters with a lot of issues are more satisfying to play. In fact, while researching this article, I came across a YouTube video where a fan asked Keir if Dave Bowman was his favorite character; and he answered carefully by suggesting Dave is “too much like myself,” adding that he prefers complicated people to portray. Which is a testament to his talent that we remember the protagonist of 2001: A Space Odyssey as much as the direction and special effects nearly 60 years later; just like we will always remember who Norman Bates is largely because of Tony.
A big assumption about less famous actors is that it’s better to be remembered for one role than to fade away from relevancy over time. This is the case with Tony and Keir, and many others. But the good thing about being forever associated with a classic film is your performance in the feature may inspire new fans to check out the rest of your efforts. I’ve been a fan of Anthony Perkins since high school and I’ve quickly become fond of Keir Dullea lately. Maybe someone who comes across my newsletter will too. Besides all the movies mentioned throughout this piece, I would also recommend Anthony Mann’s The Tin Star (1957), which is one of Tony’s best westerns; and Irvin Kershner’s The Hoodlum Priest (1961), a pretty good small budget crime drama made right before David & Lisa where Keir plays a streets smart delinquent.
