Mark Goddard, now a respected School teacher, very kindly consented to this interview which took place in front on his class of students (as a learning experience) at Scituate High School, Boston U.S.A. Mark now speaks about his life, career and his role as pilot daredevil Major Don West.

Interview by Glenn
 

Glenn:  One of the most popular questions we get asked in Australia and I imagine you are asked a lot too... and I hope you don't mind me asking ... Was there any romance between Judy and Don, or Mark and Marta, on the screen or off screen?

 Mark:  On the screen?  There wasn't much on the screen.  We held hands a couple of times on screen, once or twice I think.

Off screen she was married and I was married, which doesn't explain a lot, except to say that if we had any feelings towards each other, certainly nothing was going to come of it because we were both married to other people.

But I think we had a crush on each other.  You know, we liked each other.  We were and still are good friends, but of course, nothing was consummated.  We didn't go out, we didn't date or anything, you know.  We were just good friends.

G:  You know Mark, there's probably a lot of fans of Lost In Space who were disappointed that Don never kissed Judy.

 M:  Yeah, well I'm one of them I guess.  However, we did perform a staged kiss and a hug at the Lost In Space Atlantic City convention reunion in I992.

G:  Any comment about that kiss?

 M:  (laughs) Oh yeah, during breaks on shooting Lost In Space, we used to go to a restaurant called Chez Jay's down in Santa Monica.  It's a relaxing place where you eat peanuts, they had all these peanuts and you'd throw them on the floor, the shells and so forth.  Jay's always used to give us a big bag of peanuts to take with us.

 So I'd have a bag of peanuts and I'd go up on the catwalk in the studio of 20th Century Fox which was hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air.  On the stage floor you'd look up and you virtually can't see anything from below.  It was dark on these catwalks and they were way above the lights, you know.

 So, with my bag of peanuts and I'd climb the catwalk and the people below would look tiny, it was so far up, five storeys at least.  Anyway, I'd take these peanuts and throw them at people on the set, create havoc with these peanuts, well, they didn't know where they were coming from! I always tried to get Jonathan when he'd be doing a scene...... Just never did get him.

 I wanted to hit him with a little peanut right on his head. (laughs) I'm sure there's a Lost In Space scene somewhere, with a peanut or two dropping in the background. (laughs) ... and I wouldn't be in that scene. (laughs) I was wild.  Yeah, I used to do a lot of that stuff, with Billy too.

In fact, Billy Mumy and I - Billy was about thirteen on the show, I was about twelve. ... (laughs) No, I was twenty-eight or so.  Billy and I were, and still are great buddies, I used to hang out with Billy because he was always fun.

 And because, ...if I could make trouble, at least I was with Billy.  Who was going to do or say anything? He was just a kid.

 Now, there used to be these golf carts, the studio executives would drive around the lot in.  They were easy transportation.  There were plenty of great things to see at 20th Century Fox, - it was like a little town to itself and all the executives used these golf carts, they drove from stage to stage to check who's doing what.  There were a lot of carts around.

 Billy and I used to sneak out when we weren't filming a scene, steal them, then we'd drive these great mini-cars all over Fox, and leave them somewhere completely lost.  Nobody knew where their carts were. (laughs) Everyday, these executives were looking around for their carts.

 They had an official investigation about it - a serious one too - and they tried pretty hard, but they could never find out that Billy and I were the culprits.  We loved taking these golf carts and hiding them.  To this day, I bet there are some of them probably still hidden well, somewhere out there on the back lot at Twentieth Century Fox. (laughs)

 ... When they sold off part of Fox to build Century City, I understand they found 27 of our golf carts hidden on the lot. (laughs)

 These back lots were tremendous.  In those days, people didn't go on location to film.  Today, if you want to shoot a movie set in Boston, you'd go out to Boston to do it.  But in those days, they built Boston on the back lot, so on the back lot we had places like Japan, Italy, France and probably Australia.

 ... All these fantastic sets.  They went on and on and on - it was probably the size of this town of Scituate.  So we would visit the set of Italy and have a holiday!  And then we'd grab another golf cart and move on.

 Billy and I, then we'd drive it someplace close to our set and walk back.  You know, the "battery broke down" or something like that. (laughs) ... Oh, we had a good time.

 G:  Bill recalls that not only were the sets huge and that everything about Twentieth Century Fox was tremendous, but there were also underground tunnels that you two found, and both of you would spend quite some time exploring these tunnels.

 M:  Oh yeah, the underground tunnels, Billy and I used to take Angela down there and we'd go on and on into the city.  They were huge, we were lucky we never got lost.  We'd find our way though, eventually we'd end up somewhere else, way, way away from the set.

 G:  Maybe these tunnels may have been air raid shelters many years before?

 M:   I don't know.

 G:  At the time Lost In Space was in production you were starting a family of your own, weren't you?

 M:  yeah, now I have five children, but back then when I was doing the show, my daughter Melissa was the first born, she was 4 years old when Lost In Space went ahead, in fact she just started nursery school then.

 I used to live in Coldwater Canyon, which is about four miles from 20th Century Fox, I used to spend a lot of time with my kids, so anyway, this day she started nursery school, I rushed off at lunch to visit her wearing my space outfit.

 At that time I was driving a blue Fiat, a beautiful car and the top was always down, ... Mainly because it was broken.  It was a great little car.  Great car.  Anyway for some reason I also had my space helmet in the car and I'm on my way to visit Melissa and I was going a little bit too fast and I hear... (Mark takes his hands to his mouth and makes a police siren sound effect) ... a police siren. (laughter from the students)

 All of a sudden I see this motorcycle cop behind me.  So the cop stops me, pulls me over and I get out of the car and he comes over to me, looks in and says " What's going on here?" Of course he sees me in the silver space suit now.

 He looks at me real weird, you know, and he then looks at my helmet there in the car and says 

"Where's the goldfish?" and I said

 "No that's not a goldfish bowl! that's a space helmet." Now, Lost In Space hadn't started on television yet, so it wasn't known to him.  The policeman said "Oh yeah, and what are you doing today?"

 I said "You don't understand, you see, I’m an actor and I’m on a new show called Lost In Space, I've just been walking in space... and I’m going to visit my daughter who is down here, ...I’m going to visit my daughter, really!"

 And he thought it was real strange, he said "You're standing there in silver painted pyjamas and a goldfish bowl and you're telling me I don't understand? ... Well let's go down to this place and check on your daughter".  So he led me down to the school and my daughter Melissa is in the sand box playing with the other little kids.

 Now here's a cop with his helmet on, and here's me in a space suit without a helmet, walking in a nursery school to see my daughter and she looked at me, she went like this...

(Mark imitates Melissa shaking her head)

 I told the cop "That's my daughter Melissa, right!" Then Melissa shakes her head again and shouts "NO!" and then she burst into tears. 

So the nursery teacher came out and said "What's going on here?" and I said "Hi, I'm Melissa's father, I just wanted to prove my daughter is a real person or this guy is going to lock me up, I swear to God!"

 Now this was Melissa's first day and I hadn't met anyone at the nursery, so now the teacher says: "I've never seen you before!".  So now I'm in real trouble... I suggested to the cop that all this could be explained if we go over to the 20th Century Fox Studio, they all know me there.

 He said OK, so he leads me over to Fox and we get to the guard on the gate, and he was an old friend of mine, and I thought it'll be all right now.  He saw me with this cop walking towards him and finally the cop asked him "Do you know this guy?"

 And then, Joe the guard looked at me, and said to the cop "Nope, I don't know him!" I said "Aww, come on Joe, I come in here every day, you know me, I work here!  We're doing a show called Lost In Space!"

 Joe said "Never heard of it!", but Joe was starting to smile and the cop could tell that he was having a joke at my expense, anyway, somebody else came along and we cleared the whole thing up.  He finally believed me, and I even arranged a studio tour for the officer.

 I cleared everything up with Melissa too, in fact I used to bring Melissa to the set of Lost In Space all the time. I have pictures of Melissa with Debbie the Bloop.

 G:  Mark, there are some episodes of Lost In Space, where you do not appear at all, what was the reason for that?

 M:  There were a couple of shows I didn't do. I was suspended, I was.  Guy was too.  Guy and I both were suspended for a couple of shows. I figured out exactly why. I guess it was something that I said. I guess I got angry at the producer.  I think I told the producer off, ...I think that's what happened, and I guess you're not supposed to do that. ...So I was a bad boy, once ... or twice.

 G:  June told me the fact that she and Guy Williams were taken off the show, was because they laughed so much at those silly scenes from The Great Vegetable Rebellion episode, in particular, one scene involving a ropenet being thrown over the cast.

 She felt she had to go with the flow and consequently, they laughed themselves silly trying to escape the clutches of an evil carrot.

 M:  Yeah.

 G:  They laughed themselves out of a couple of episodes – at full pay.

 M:  Yeah, well, I don't know what I did. I know the producer Irwin Allen got very angry with me.  Very, very angry with me.

 G:  What did Irwin do?

 M:  Well, I remember once he came down to the set of Lost In Space in a bad mood, surrounded by his 'Yes' men.  He was there to answer some complaint from Guy, and Irwin, not mincing words, yelled out loudly in front of everyone - cast and crew: " Williams, you're a*#*-#*!" (laughs)

 Meanwhile, I'm hiding behind a fake rock and snickering to myself, so Irwin ran around the boulder and screamed out: "And Goddard, you're a double a*#*-#*!" (laughs)

 G:  Can you tell us more about Irwin Allen?

 M:  Well, he directed the pilot, it took about 21 days to shoot it, which we did just before the Christmas of 1964 - 21 days, that's a long time to shoot a pilot.  Irwin was a good director when it came to vision and he knew what he wanted as an editor, he probably could envisage an overall picture.  Yeah, he knew what he wanted.

 But he wasn't a good director as far as actors were concerned, because I don't think he liked actors too much.  He was always around when we were shooting the show, you know. I can't tell you too much about Irwin, because I never had a really good relationship with Irwin, except that I wish he'd done a reunion picture of Lost In Space.

 Wish he'd done it years ago, when Guy was still living, it would have been nice. I don't think there'll ever be a reunion picture of Lost In Space, but it would have been nice to have done one.

 But Irwin didn't do it and I think he had the power to do it, so my feelings aren't too fond towards him because of that.

 I think he should have done the movie.  He kind of owed it to the cast.  We don't get residuals from Lost In Space.  The years it's been going on and people are making money off this show everywhere.  Some people are making lots of money off it.

 The cast, we don't make a penny.  You know, okay, that's sour grapes, where if we had done a reunion picture, at least we could have picked up a few dollars along the way.  Acting's a tough life!  You have your good years and bad years.  When you have your bad years, it's hard you know.

 G:  If Irwin had made the reunion movie, would that have been compensation for you?

 M:  Yeah, I could have done something with it.

 ... At this point I deeply appreciated Mark's forthrightness and candour, however myself, and possibly the students became a little uneasy, so I changed the line of questioning to relate to the children...

 G:  Mark, what's the best piece of advice, do you think you could give to children, during their growing years?

 M:  The best piece of advice, I could have given anyone is that if anything goes against you in life, you've got to turn it around and make it work for you.

 Like I've said, you can't wallow in it and say "Oh, poor me." You've got to use that as an experience and bring it back and make it work for you. I wanted to be a basketball player. I love basketball. I went to college, and I got cut from the team.

 It broke my heart. I wanted to play basketball and I wasn't good enough to make the team!  So that's something that went against me.

 So instead of saying "Oh, poor me," I took that and went into the dramatic society at college.  And that brought me into acting.

 I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, then I came over to California, I had a beat up old car, a Plymouth convertible, and I ended up in Long Beach with about $8 in my pocket.

 Finally I found Hollywood and I went to Paramount Studios, I wanted to go on the lot but the security guard wouldn't let me in. I remember ... across the road was this place called O'Blatts and I was having a cup of coffee when I met this man named Frank Dana who was doing a small part in a movie.

 He told me the director's name so I decided to spend my last dollars on some proper writing paper, borrowed a pen and wrote a letter to this director 'Joe Anthony'

 My letter just simply said 'My name is Mark Goddard, I just got out here, I did Stock in Florida, studied in New York and I would like some advice.  " and I left my phone number. I was staying with relatives down in Long Beach and I gave the letter to the same guard at the Paramount gate who wouldn't let me in previously.

 He gave the note to Joe Anthony who was really a Broadway director and who was doing a movie called Careers with Shirley MacLaine.

 So Joe's secretary called me to set up a meeting.  She said "Joe wants to say hello and talk to you".  Great!  The following Monday, I returned to Paramount, walked past that security guard and went on the set when they were shooting a scene.

 I remember clearly, it was a courtroom scene.  Everyone left for lunch, but I sat down and kept sitting in a chair, on that set, since I didn't know who Joe Anthony was.

 After lunch they returned and Joe walked up to me and said "Oh, you must be the young man who wrote the letter".  So we sat down and talked for ten minutes and he set up some appointments for me to see people at William Morris and MCA.

 That's how it all started.  The William Morris agency sent me out to Dick Powell and Aaron Spelling, and the next week I screen tested. and within three weeks I had my first series, called Johnny Ringo.

 G:  Please tell me about that meeting with Aaron Spelling and Dick Powell.  That must have been the turning point for you.

 M:  Yeah!, at that time, Aaron Spelling was a writer, just turning producer.  Now he's best known for producing series like Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 902I 0.

 Dick Powell was an actor/producer and one of the driving forces at Four Star Productions. I made a film test for Johnny Ringo which they tell me was pretty bad, but it was good in one way, because when I landed this test, I worked hard and tried my best.  The other actors who were testing against me were very smooth, very professional, but they didn't bring anything exciting to it, that they were looking for.

 Carolyn Jones, the actress (best known as Morticia in The Addams Family) was married to Aaron at the time, thought I had something special "He's so alive on the screen" she said, "Go with him” so they did.

 My character Cully was a trick-shot artist, he was young, naive, into carny lingo & full of energy, always doing things wrong. I had the qualities that were right for the character.  Carolyn Jones saw the quality in me.  Four Star agreed, the people at Four Star even had me change my name.

 G:  Do you mean to tell me that your real name is not Mark Goddard?

 M:  Oh, it's Goddard all right, but it's not Mark.

 G:  All right, I'm dying of curiosity, what is your real first name?

 M:  I was born Charles Goddard, but I was known in those days as Chuck Goddard, the people at Four Star felt the name Chuck Goddard was a little too similar to Chuck Connors from The Rifleman, so they asked me to change it. I took "Mark" from my nephew, who was just born at that time.

 G:  I like Chuck Goddard!

 M:  Yeah, well.

 G:  Being thrust in the Western genre, were you comfortable in a horse saddle?  Are you a good horse rider?

 M:  Let's just say I was raised on a ranch in Boston. (laughs) (Mark is alluding to the fact that there are no Wild West horse ranches in Boston - Ed) I'd never been on a horse!  It was embarrassing and it was scary. I don't even think the horse liked me, he gave me a real quick ride.

 Before I went into Johnny Ringo, they gave me a guest-spot on The Rifleman with Chuck Connors and Michael Ansara.

 I was a member of the posse who gets wounded and for any young person, let alone an actor, being on a big horse you've never ridden before, it's frightening.

 The horse ran away with me and the reins fell down and so on.  It was awful! (laughs) But once I was cast in Johnny Ringo, I took lessons. I worked very hard with it, just as I did with the guns.

 G:  Being cast as a gun slinging performer, I imagine you became quite accomplished with guns too?

 M:  Yeah, Cully was supposed to be the best trick-shot gun artist, but when I pulled out my guns they fell on the table, knocking the coffee over and the whole bit! (laughs) I took lessons, I had blisters on top of blisters on the index fingers of both hands doing these guns plays.  When I did The Rifleman, I met Sammy Davis Jr. and he taught me all the gun tricks.

 A guy called Rod Redwing was great.  He also taught me what I had to do, and how I had to do it. I had to practice in front of the mirror, but with a bed in-between me and the mirror.  And you know why I put the bed against the mirror?  So that if the guns fell, they fell on the bed, not on my toes!

 Anyway, so my whole career, everything that has happened to me is a result of that college basketball disappointment. I was heart-broken I couldn't play in a basketball team, but instead of letting it get to me I took that and went into something else with that energy, and made acting my life.

 G:  Guy Williams - can you tell me what Guy was like?

 M:  Yes!  Yes!  Guy was wonderful.  A very intelligent man, he had a lot of culture, I admired that, he liked good wine, classical music, ... and he had a sparkle in his eyes.

 He had a little bit of that Errol Flynn-type about Guy's to him. He was also warm, kind and generous you know, and we miss him a lot.

G:  Mark, how did you hear death in I989, may I ask?

 M:  June called me and told me and we talked for about forty minutes on the phone about Guido.  We called him Guido. (Guido is Italian for Guy, although Guy was born in America, his parents were Italian -Ed.) And I got up that following morning, and I had a conversation in my mind with Guy.  In fact, I wrote it all down.

 It was a two page - more than that... about four page conversation. I wrote, about twenty minutes of writing with Guy, and we just talked with each other. I talked about the show, I talked about what it was like to be dead, you know.  It was funny, strange, but, I...mean it's tragic.

In Part 3 of this interview, Mark reveals his conversation with Guy.  He tells us more about June, Marta, Angela, Bill and Jonathan.  Also about his role in Lost in Space - The Motion Picture.

READ THE NEXT GREAT PART TO THIS INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH MARK GODDARD.