One might mistakenly assume that Terry Becker
grew up hungry, so much has he piled on his plate as an adult. Actor,
producer, director, television program developer--Terry Becker has done it
all and quite successfully, like a man driven.
An obsession with rehearsal evinced later in life was possibly the
product of a childhood stuttering problem Becker suffered while
growing up in the Bronx. As he commented in Alison Passarelli's
(check out her website--NIMR
Reports) Oct/Nov 2002 FILMFAX article, "I was tough
on myself. I was embarrassed. I remember standing in
front of a mirror hours on end, trying to speak fluently, trying
to recite Shakespearean sonnets--not because I wanted to be an actor--I
wanted to be a human being."
But an actor he
became, and much more. Becker found the stage early-on (he
was encouraged toward performance by grade-school
councilors who felt theater might keep him
off the streets and out of trouble).
It was in high school that the
acting bug really kicked in, and he found himself involved in a
progression of plays at school and with various neighborhood
theater groups. He later studied under the likes of Stella
Adler and Lee Strasberg, and coincidentally became a friend of Paddy
Chayefsky while the two were in the same
writing class. |
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Photo-Quincy Crossroads
Collection
Click for larger version
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With
the golden age of television at hand,
Becker jumped in and made hundreds of appearances on live TV. What a way
to sharpen your acting teeth, and all of it on the East
Coast
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Then Warner
Brothers contract player Marie Wilson, who had the same agency as
Becker, needed some help with a project that eventually led him to
Hollywood where he appeared in several films, including Teacher's
Pet and Compulsion. He made guest appearances on
television series such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide,
Twilight Zone and later became a regular on Voyage to the
Bottom of the Sea as the often-cheeky Chief
Sharkey. |
Becker joined the Voyage cast at the beginning of it's second
season after the untimely death of the lovable Henry Kulky, who had played
Chief Jones through much of the first season's worth of black and white
shows. Hunting for a replacement Chief, Irwin Allen, upon screening
The Men
, in which Becker
appeared in uniform, reportedly voiced, "That's the
guy!"
According to Becker, the
Chief, initially a utilitarian
character, was upped in prominence after an incident
in one of the series' early-on season-two shows. Unexpectedly, the episode came up short in
length and the director implored Becker and series star Richard
Basehart to improvise several minutes worth of film. Up until this point,
as Becker explains it, he'd had precious little interaction with Basehart.
But they had their marching orders from the director,
and as Becker elucidated in the aforementioned FILMFAX article,
"Well, we took off. After five minutes, they're yelling and
screaming, 'Hold it! Cut! Cut! Cut! We've got enough! We've
got enough!' And at the end of that thing, Mr. Basehart turned to
me, embraced me, and said, 'You're good. I want you to be with me.
I'm going to talk to Irwin." And talk he did, to the extent that
Voyage's Admiral and Chief wound up having fun scenes in many episodes
over the remainder of the series' run.
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At home in the missile
room.
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Although Becker had directed by the time of his stint on Voyage, he
never thought of asking to direct an episode. Why? One
of Becker's more salient comments in the FILMFAX article went
like this: "It never occurred to me at all. I was an actor on that
show. You know, it's very difficult to be an actor and to direct, unless
you're cheating on one or the other."
When Voyage ended, Becker went on to become heavily involved in
the directing of the successful series, Room 222, for which he won
an Emmy, and stints at directing such popular offerings as
Mission Impossible, Mash, and The Courtship of
Eddy's Father . Later still came
his production company, Becker Enterprises, which has been involved with
the production of series and pilot shows for the networks.
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Today, Terry Becker makes occasional guest
appearances at science-fiction conventions to meet and greet his
many fans, and has renewed old friendships with Del Monroe
(Kowalski) and Allan Hunt (Riley).
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 At left, photo
of Terry Becker taken in late mid-2002 at the Chiller
Convention. | |
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Order
your next cake or cake decorating sugarflowers from Terry
Becker's company,
Sugarflowers.com
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More
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