Bill Mumy celebrated 30 years of Lost In Space with the Space Family Robinson in Boston USA. Ian Stahlhut talks exclusively to Bill Mumy for Alpha Control. In this very candid interview Bill now speaks his mind about love, life and Lost In Space.

Bill: Hello Australia, it's December 3rd 1995.

Ian: Ladies and Gentleman, we are here with the one and only Mr. Bill Mumy.

I: You've just had a wonderful reunion with your fellow cast mates from Lost In Space what are your feelings after 30 years?

B: (laughs) I'm all tingly and warm inside! I always feel great when I'm with my extended family.

I: Do you feel closer to any particular cast member?

B: You Ian, right now!

I: ( laughs ) I'm not a cast member.......

B: Do I feel closer to any particular cast member? .... um ..well, I was seated between Angela and Jonathan, so...... (pause) No, I love them all, I love them all very dearly, I have different relationships with all of them. Certainly over the last 30 years, I would say my relationship with Angela has been the closest, but they are all like family to me.

I: That's lovely to hear. How did it all start, how did Bill Mumy get into the movies and television?

B: I broke my leg when I was 4 years old and I was in a plaster cast so I stared at the television set for months - I stared at Guy Williams as Zorro, George Reeves as Superman.... this was back in the late 5O's... and ( pointing at the T.V. set) I knew that acting was what I wanted to do.

I: So how does your average kid growing up in Los Angeles, who says that, actually get into the field of acting?

B: Well, my Mum had been employed at 20th Century Fox studios for 10 or 11 years before she met my Dad. Her father had been a very successful agent in the 1930's and 1940's. So my mother's side of the family wasn't afraid of show business or impressed by it.

We lived in West Los Angeles, right near all the studios, so my father, who was a very wealthy man at the time said to my Mum, well, if he really wants to do this and you want to explore that - as long as he's happy and you go with him - we'll put his money away for him. My Dad invested my money very well ... and my Mum always went with me on the jobs. You can't escape your destiny.. really, we checked it out and I worked for 20 years.

I: And was it movies that came first or was it television?

B: No, No, I started working on various television shows and commercials, I mean I did a lot of stuff, I probably did 50 TV shows before Lost In Space. When I first started in 1959, 1960 ... I was doing little parts in 'Playhouse 90' 'Riverboat', 'The Loretta Young Show' and many others. I found myself working with many great people like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kramer.

I: Tell me about the famous Alfred Hitchcock incident, where he wanted to nail you to the floor! Was that in a film or a television production?

B: I did three of his television shows called Alfred Hitchcock presents and he directed this particular episode called 'Bang! you're dead'. It's a very suspenseful and a very good television programme. Marta Kristen is in it as a matter of fact. Anyway, Alfred was directing this episode when I was about 7 or 8 years of age and it was the end of the day and you could only work child actors a certain amount of time. So the time was running out and the teacher was looking at her watch indicating that they were about to lose me.

They wanted to get this close-up of me and I was not standing still, so Alfred Hitchcock, this huge sweaty frame of a man walked up to me - he was sweating all the time! He always wore a black suit, a white shirt and a black tie ... kind of the sort of suit that Glenn wears all the time, although Glenn wears more of a 'Beatles' type of suit ... anyway, Alfred Hitchcock walks up to me ... where no-one could hear him except for me and he leans down to me ... and this is exactly what he says to me: (Bill breaths very heavily) "If you don't stop moving about, I'm going to get a nail and I'm going to nail your feet to your mark! ... And the blood will come pouring out like milk ... so stop moving!!"

There's this one close-up in 'Bang! You're Dead' where you can see me standing frozen.... I was petrified!

I: I guess he got the reaction he was after. What was the circumstance that led to Lost In Space?

B: I got called and offered the job. I didn't audition for it.

I: Watching the pilot episode of Lost in space, I can imagine that it must have been a lot of fun, was it actually fun to make that or were the day to day realities a lot of hard work?

B: Both, we (my parent's agent and I) had not actually wanted to do a series ... you see, my career in those days was really happening, I worked with Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and Brigitte Bardot and so many great actors and directors. I mean I would do a movie with Jimmy Stewart, and go over to the next lot to do a movie for Walt Disney.

I could then do an episode of Rod Sterling's 'Twilight Zone' and then do guest appearances on 'Ozzie and Harriet', 'Bewitched', 'Perry Mason' and so on which gave me such a variety of "arenas" in television and film. There was comedy, drama, westerns and fantasy..... really covering a lot of ground, and it was such a great experience which honed my acting ability.

I: What was it that led you to being cast as Will Robinson in Lost in Space?

B: My agent was handed a script, and I was such a huge comic book/super hero fan, and Will Robinson seemed like a little super hero to me with his space suit and laser pistol ...

I: It must have been like a dream come true!

B: Well, yeah, it just seemed like a good move to make.. I wanted to do that. And so they said fine!

I: As a child star did you have any difficulty with keeping friends and being able to play with your friends ... or were other kids your age too 'star-struck' by having seen you on television?

B: I have the same friends now as I had when I was 10. I always have had great solid mates and I lived on a little cul-de-sac from the day I was born till about the age of ten and a half or so, when we moved a few miles up the road.

But all the local kids grew up with me being on television and I started school by coming and going regularly which seemed quite natural to me ... and I didn't make any big deal out of it and it seemed natural to my friends. I went to a public school, not a private one which was fine, and when Lost In Space ended I had actually been away from public school for about four years.

I had done the feature film 'Dear Brigitte' and then gone straight into Lost In Space where I was schooled on the 20th Century lot with Angela Cartwright. When that ended, I had to go back into public school for a while ... and then it was very hard ... because with the exception of a few friends from grade four, I was now going into the ninth grade (in High School) with thousands of other kids and I never really knew who wanted to be my friend just because I was famous ... and there were a lot of people there who just wanted to 'kick my #*%#!'....because I was famous!

I: You mean they wanted to pick fights with you simply because you were famous!

B: Absolutely!! There's that T.V. boy, well #%* him! (Bill imitated a punch being thrown) so I had to walk a very thin line there ... I couldn't be a 'wimp' and yet not be too much of an ass at the same time, but once I formed a band ... I formed a rock'n'roll band in the ninth grade and that seemed to just cut through all the bull*%#.

I was the guy with the guitar up there (on stage) and I could play and it was like 'I was cool'. But I think 13, 14, 15 ... it's just a horrible age for anybody, especially at school. But when you're famous and you are thrust back into it, it was very difficult… I HATED IT! I wanted to go back to school at 20th Century with Angela right away.... which I soon did.

I: Are you happy knowing that quite possibly you will be best remembered for your character of Will Robinson or are you fairly certain that there are better roles, bigger challenges, down the line for Bill Mumy?

B: Well, I'm not competitive with Will Robinson, and yes, quite possibly there will be other roles in the future - In fact I'm very proud of some of my other parts in movies and such, that are just as good. But it is hard to compete with a show which has been in syndication now for more than 30 years!

There are 84 episodes (including the pilot) of Lost In Space in which I played that character and I love Will Robinson. He's a great guy, a genius, but not a wimp, he's very bold and he's polite, but he doesn't take crap from anybody. He's a musician and the one who pulls everyone's butt out of the fire each week. He's a problem solver and he's a catalyst for those problems. He's great - I love Will !

I: Aside from the scripts as written, did you inject any Bill Mumy into Will Robinson?

B: Oh sure, I mean there's a lot of me put into Will ... there's a lot of me put into a lot of the characters I play. Sure!

I: Are you happy with your current role as Lennier in Babylon 5 - being hidden under all that make-up?

B: Well, I'm not happy with the physical process, it's very draining and difficult. The make-up is bad for your skin, but he looks amazing! That Lennier make-up - it's a great look.

You were asking before about the amount of Bill Mumy I put into a character, well there is very little of me in Lennier because he's very centred, spiritual and mellow, he's even and non-impulsive. I'm much more impulsive, and (waves his arms in the air) you know ... wacky ... I mean, Will was a lot smarter than I am, but I have a lot of his impulsiveness and his 'jump into the thick of it'. I watch Lost In Space sometimes and I see Will yelling at Dr. Smith and yelling at Penny .... that's a lot more like me than Lennier is like me.

I: Reacting to the wonderful talents of Jonathan Harris on the set as Dr. Smith, you must have been quite shocked when Jonathan would say things that were not in the script.

B: Well, Jonathan re-wrote all of his lines almost from the very beginning. For the first few shows he stayed true to character on the page, but then it all changed (Bill then imitates Jonathan scribbling on a script puts on his best Jonathan voice) "That's OUT! We'll have none of this!! We won't be saying this!!"

But of course I did rehearse with Jonathan in his trailer so I knew what he was going to say and he was great! We worked well together. We just clicked very well and I love Jonathan and I respect his talent immensely. There were times when I felt that he was largely responsible for Lost In Space going in a direction that I didn't want it to go in. I wanted Lost In Space to be like a super hero comic book. I wanted it to be a Sci-Fi adventure show in an ensemble reality.

I liked having a lot of work to do but I felt for my friends not having as much work to do. I wanted June and Angela, Mark, Marta and Guy to have more, but there was never any animosity toward Jonathan - ever! Jonathan was always very gracious with his workload and of course he didn't write the scripts, he just changed dialogue around to give it more true character.

We all loved Jonathan even when it seemed apparent after a while the scripts became more and more the "Jonathan Harris, Bill Mumy and the Robot show". The rest of the cast weren't mad at me or Jonathan or Bobby. You know, I get paid for every episode of Babylon 5 and there's a lot of episodes that I'm just not in at all. Well, I get a script and I say "Where am I in this?"

But I have to let that go and just say I'm not in that because I'm not right for this story now and there's 14 regulars in the show. They're going pay me, Guy got paid if he came to work or not and it's the same for me. As I look back on it now, it wasn't Jonathan who made the show a fantasy or a comedy, it was just the writing and the way it developed.

I: With the lost In Space in its third season, some of the scripts were getting away from the broad fantasy of the previous year to more action science fiction, but tell me about the exception 'The Great Vegetable Rebellion', how could you keep a straight face making that episode?

B: (laughs) None of us could! I mean you can see Mark Goddard in some shots turning away from the cameras, putting his hand across his mouth to hold back his laughter. To me I honestly feel that this is not only the worst episode of Lost In Space, but the worst episode of any television show that was ever written, in fact it's so absolutely bad, that it's great! In fact it's very 'Ed Wood' in that way.

I: I was just going to say that too! It's like 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' which is so very badly made, that it's great fun to watch.

B: Yeah, I mean it's beyond Ed Wood ... and like here's Stanley Adams in a bad carrot suit, I mean it's unbelievably bad, and so from that perspective you can have a good laugh about it. And for the past 27 years or so, every time I see it I just go 'ugh!' (Bill shields his eyes as though viewing the show aghast!) You know, I just cringe ... Oh my God it's 'The Great Vegetable Rebellion!' ... take it away!

I: Tell me about Guy Williams, was he as I have heard like a father figure to you?

B: Not really, he was a co-worker who played my father who I liked very very much, who I had grown up admiring. From the time I was a little boy, he was my hero and if you look at my home movies, you'll just see me in Zorro outfits ... I mean he was my hero! He taught me how to fence and he treated me beautifully. I think he was a fine leading man and a good actor an a very, very generous sweet man who never complained about the way things went ... and combed his hair a lot!

I used to draw comic books starring the Lost In Space cast and I created a comic book about Guy and June which I called 'The Comb and Caramia' - his crime busting beauty and I had a comic about me and Mark Goddard as 'Captain Panther and the Fox' that I used to draw on the set of Lost In Space. I still have those comics too, as does June - she has copies of all of them.

I: I hope one day we get to see them printed in Alpha Control. Do people inevitably ask you what's your favourite episode? And do you have a standard answer, or does you answer change depending on your mood?

B: It changes, yeah! I don't actually have a favourite definitive episode. Of course the first few were just great and I often say 'Return to Earth' because Will Robinson really went back to earth in 1997 to get that Carbon Tetrachloride, for if he didn't get it, they would have all died.

I: That episode touched a lot of people's hearts with it's setting at Christmas in a small town of middle America!

B: Yeah, but you look at it now and you wonder why the hell, didn't they let him call Alpha Control ... and what's with these Hooterville telephones in 1997?

I: Sure, but we have the gift now of being able to look back now 30 years later with video cassette episodes we can watch again and again. But in 1965 the episode would not have seemed quite so old fashioned'.

B: Oh yeah, I like that episode a lot, even though I look at it now with a more critical perspective, and I also liked ' The Keeper' very because we stretched into a 'two-parter' and Michael Rennie was a such a classy actor. I liked "The Anti Matter Man' a lot, it felt like we were on the right track again. Guy Williams was great in it and we actually had a lot to do that was serious and meant something.

I: I noticed that the direction in the Anti Matter man is totally different than other episodes.

B: Who directed that, Glenn? (Bill knew that Glenn would know!)

Glenn: Sutton Roley.

B: Sutton Roley? As long as it wasn't Don Richardson. Anyway, it was one of the best for sure and Guy was absolutely superb in that episode.

I: Immediately after Lost In Space what did you do?

B: Well, I went straight into a Walt Disney movie called 'Rascal', which is a great movie, it had a great script and I think it was one of my best performances. I liked it very much. Then I did some more episodic work, following which I did 'Bless the Beasts and the Children'. After which I took a couple of years off to devote to my band, my music at that time and I had to recuperate after a 'Shattered' relationship.

I: I see ... but now you're married and you have two children.

B: Yes, I am married! I have a wonderful, beautiful wife named Eileen and two beautiful healthy children. My son Seth is starring in a great movie. Martha Coolidge's' film 'Three Wishes' with Patrick Swayze. I'm part of a great series called Babylon 5, my band the Jenerators is working on a second album right now, we're gigging in L.A. all the time, Barnes and Barnes is working on their 9th Rhino C.D. - kind of a retrospective of some unreleased things from the vaults and a few new things. I'm writing some comic books, but most importantly besides Babylon 5, I'm the creator/producer/writer (with my partner Peter David) of a new Nickelodeon Space adventure series called 'Space Cases'. I'm in production right now, we've finished the first few episodes and in March 1996 the show premiers.

I: Any dreams of directing at this point?

B: No dreams, I could direct them if I want to, it's not an ambition of mine. First of all the show is made in Canada and there's a Canadian content rule that says if you have an American writer, you have to have an Canadian director and we're more interested in writing than we are in directing them. We just did some second unit stuff in L.A. that Kevin Bums directed me and Mark (Star Wars) Hamill in. We are guest stars in a part of an episode called 'A day in the life'. I think you'll like it.

I: Speaking of Kevin Burns, we loved 'The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen'. Irwin created so much work for so many people.

B: Well, that was very enjoyable. I've done a lot of work for the Sci-Fi channel.

I: Well, everything looks fine for Bill Mumy at the moment, what's his future?

B: (looking at his watch) Well, I'm going to Montreal tomorrow for some further work on 'Space Cases'. I've got no idea what the future holds, if I did, I'd be playing the stock market.

I: Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you and talking to you, thank you very much for you're time. You have been very kind to us and to the Lost In Space Australia fan club and we very much appreciate it.

B: Well you guys have been very supportive in Australia, and don't think we don't appreciate it, because we do. And I know that Glenn has been terrific, I know that Jonathan Harris had a wonderful time when he was in Australia. You guys hosted him well and I understand that Bobby May and Dick Tufeld are coming over for the 'Robot-Body and Soul tour'.

I: That's right.

B: You see, I know what's going on in Australia, I know that the tour will be great and they will have a good time with the Australian people and hopefully I'll get down to Australia one of these days.

I: You're welcome anytime Bill Mumy! Anytime!

B: You heard him folks, ANYTIME!

I: Thank you mate, that was great!

B: Anytime!