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Actor Barry Atwater, not to be confused with the similarly named Barry Goldwater (family name originally Goldwasser), in an Election Year was made up quite convincingly and portrayed the sweet 16th President Abraham Lincoln elected 1860 a century earlier in the July 6th, 1960 ABC-TV episode of Alcoa Presents (program otherwise known as One Step Beyond with long-time host John Newland):
"The Day the World Wept—The Lincoln Story"
Atwater made the rounds of fantastic television as he also appeared on Twilight Zone in
"The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" and a memorable Outer Limits episode with Robert Culp & Salome Jens, the eerie (aren't they all?) "Corpus Earthling":
Atwater wasn't the only actor to play the tragic President on an iconic science fictional series, as was fellow thespian Lee Bergere later one of the stars of the short-lived
ABC-TV Hot L Baltimore on which he played one of TV's first gay regular characters.
Here's "Lincoln" Lee Bergere in 1968's classic Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain":
His co-star in that episode? None other than (drumroll AND rimshot please) —Barry Atwater:
Episode also has a thinly disguised Richard Nixon doppelgänger in the form of villainous "Col. Green" (Phillip Pine), wearing what is surely some sort of unintentional cosmic jape:
ALL RED!
Watch Green/Pine utter the immortal words that years later every scoundrel and felon from Watergate to Iran-Contra said to the investigators/prosecutors:
"I don't remember."
The symbolism of the color red as used in the episode hilariously ironic, especially for a Nixon stand-in.
"Dick" Nixon opportunistically made a lucrative career out of being a so-called vehement "anti-Communist" during the late 1940's and early 1950's, grandstanded, even had people unjustly jailed, etc., during the HUAC and Senator Joe era, until being made running-mate for retired 5*****star General Dwight D. Eisenhower (who never really trusted him), yet...it was none other than Nixon who went to basically play footsie and go to bed with the regime of Mao Tse Tung & Chou En-lai helping to destroy the American way of life which he supposedly helped protect, and when in reality planted the seeds and set the wheels in motion (to poorly mix metaphors if I may) to dismantle American industry here while transferring the corporate wealth and technology there through their so-called "People's Republic of China" proxies. Yes, that's right, "anti-Comm Dick" Nixon $OLD OUT the American public to the "Chi-Comms" AND transnational corporate interests 40 years ago in 1972!
In the words of the The Amazing Criswell: "Can you prove it didn't happen?"
Here's the two old "Red Queens" sealing the deal:
Red used to mean "Communist", didn't it?
Their flags, both in the former "U.S.S.R." and the current "People's Republic"—all red.
When we refer to someone as steadfast and loyal we say that they're "true blue"."Better DEAD than Red!", was the old slogan of The John Bitch Society, right?
Okay...then why the Hell do the Republicans refer to their constituencies and the predominantly Republican states as "Red States", and even the news media shows it as "Red" in their chiron graphs and Powerpoint presentations.
Oh yeah, damn!, I forgot about Nixon. He apparently was both...like Certs Breath Mints, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or perhaps a 'mole', not the delicious Mexican chocolate sauce but something more like an ecomomic "Manchurian Candidate".
Speaking of which...
Prophetically Phillip Pine portrays the Vice President who heroically prevents the by-any-other-name Communist Chinese from replacing the U.S. President with a 'mole', an agent operative imposter, whose sole objective is to carry out policies beneficial to them and their other nefarious plans in the eerily prescient September 1963 ABC-TV
The Outer Limits, "100 Days of the Dragon":
Faux "Nixon", a reel-life hero, unlike the actual less-than-zerO heel in real life.
Phillip Pine, as a result of resemblance and his portrayals of basically thinly disguised versions of Richard M. Nixon was also wildly popular overseas—in of all places the Philippines.
Big dictator Ferdinando "Poo"Marcos & ex-beauty queen wife Imelda, friends & allies to "Dick", just went absolutely nutsy coo-coo over Phillip Pine!
Didn't like The Beatles much though...
Star Trek creator "Great Bird of the Galaxy" Gene Roddenberry however not only liked The Beatles and The Monkees—Ensign Chekov (Walter Koenig) was s'pposed to be a Russian 'Davy Jones'—but also was an "Honest Abe" buff as his mail-order merchandising company selling Vulcan "IDIC" necklaces & jewelry was Lincoln Enterprises, extra-terrestrial humanoid intelligence Agent Gary Seven's (Robert Lansing) gal-pal Friday played by a young pre-Young Frankenstein Terri Garr was named "Roberta Lincoln"—
"Roberta" the feminine variation of the masculine name Robert—Robert Lincoln was Abe's son, affectionately nicknamed "Todd".
But hey—what about friggin' Barry Atwater?
Now without going into too much of a recap of Atwater's acting history, and risk boring you to tears, he was really on a roll (with sesame seeds) when he lucked into the role of Janos Skorzeny*, the v--vampire that Darren McGavin as dogged bulldog reporter vet
"Carl Kolchak" battled in the highest rated Made-For-TV movie at the time, based on Jeff Rice's (NO relation to Anne Rice) VampireINVegas novel by TV's Dan "Dark Shadows" Curtis, 1971's "The Night Stalker":
The movie went over like gangbusters, and even in the U.K. and Europe where it was actually released theatrically made a good showing in the box-office receipts, so much so
now even Christopher Lee's long-running "Count Dracula" movie series was brought up to date by basically aping the success of Barry Atwater's very own portrayal of Janos Skorzeny* a year earlier, right down to the vampire not in Vegas, but instead still "Swingin' London", now more Hippie than Mod, and the John Cacavas music score that tries to emulate the Robert Colbert of the "Night Stalker" soundtrack as well.
It was to be to be called, "Dracula Is Alive & Well & Living In London", but Lee balked as the title seemed to suggest a comedy as he was in the 1959 Italian farce "Tempi duri per gli Vampiri" aka "Uncle Was A Vampire", made hot on the heels of the international success of Hammer's 1950's Frankenstein and Dracula reboots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhBfI8_xPAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RswjXaMMrNM
So thankfully for all, it was renamed to the more Gregorian calendar sounding,
"Dracula A.D. 1972":
And to make certain to the movie-going public that this was the new, "hip", *happening* Dracula, the point driven home as a sharpened wooden stake, Barry Atwater, the star of the previous year's horror hit, was THE go-go-to guy who made the audience of mostly teenagers & stoners take "The Oath" of the actual "Count Dracula Society" before the movie proper started:toll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M92r5qKhp4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiSCkG1LEMA
After all this success, you'd figure that Atwater was a happy camper what with highly identifiable roles on programs and in movies that would be the envy of any actor, right? Not quite. From the Wikipedia:
"Atwater's health history has been subject to much speculation. Early in his career, he used steroids heavily to add bulk to his six-foot-one-inch frame. Suffering from terminal cancer, he died in 1978, shortly after his 60th birthday, from a stroke. At least two sources who were close to the actor believe the dramatic changes in his facial structure that started in the mid-1960s also resulted from steroid overuse, which is known to cause acromegaly. The bridge of his nose widened, his brow became very prominent (causing his eyes to appear more sunken), and his jaw line started to weaken. He appears to have also undergone extensive and intentional plastic surgery that included a facelift, eyelid surgery, and at least two dramatic rhinoplasties."
All that effort and expense...and all in vain.
Then finally after being thoroughly ravaged his last appearance on the 1977 "Hotel Of Fear" episode of "The Rockford Files" where you can plainly see the acromegaly take its toll.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M92r5qKhp4
Gee, wonder if the "Hotel Of Fear" was anywhere near his former co-star (and also
Abe Lincoln impersonator) Lee Bergere's "Hot L Baltimore", or does the "L" in "Hot L Baltimore", besides it being a clever representation of the "e" being burned out of a
n/e/o/n/ sign, also perhaps stand for "L"incoln, or "L"ee? Astute historians will point out that the 16th President's tenure was almost doomed from the start, as he was elected November 6th, 1860, and well wouldn't you know it but that a scheme early on called, get this, The Baltimore Plot was an alleged conspiracy in late February 1861 to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln en route to his inauguration!
Baltimore too is also the location where Edgar Allan Poe is most associated with, more than the island of Manhattan, "the Bronk's" (Bronx) and Philadelphia, all places in which he spent considerable time, as well as being familiar with the Booth acting family as his Mom was an actress and they were friends with Edwin Booth, older brother to future assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Edwin Booth, the very same man who also unknowingly (?) saved Lincoln son Robert "Todd" Lincoln from being run over by a steam-engine as a young boy in a Jersey City NJ railway station a few years before the infamous deed.
"Todd" Lincoln who wasn't present at his father's funeral, but when adult was invited to the Inaugurations of Garfield, and McKinley, who were also assassinated, and when was invited to another Presidential function politely, and wisely, declined.
By the way, FOX-TV's Fringe had a character these past two years named "Lincoln Lee" in both our Earth-1 and the parallel Earth-2, and wonder if the writers...?
Finally, the German word for the name Todd, "Tod", also translates to—"Death"...☠
