Michael Rennie - The Third Man Series and Television

The Third Man Series and Television

In 1959, Rennie became a familiar face on television, taking the role of Harry Lime in The Third Man, an Anglo-American syndicated television series very loosely based on the character previously played by Orson Welles. During the 1960s, he made guest appearances on such series as The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Route 66 (a portrayal of a doomed pilot in the two-part episode "Fly Away Home"); Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Perry Mason (one of four actors in four consecutive episodes substituting for series star Raymond Burr, who was recovering from surgery); Wagon Train (a 90-minute colour episode as an English big game hunter); The Great Adventure (in an installment of this anthology series about remarkable events in American history, he portrayed Confederate president Jefferson Davis); Daniel Boone, (in the episodes "The Sound of Wings" and "First in War, First in Peace"); Lost in Space (another two-part episode—as an all-powerful alien zookeeper, "The Keeper", he worked one last time with his Third Man costar Jonathan Harris); The Time Tunnel (as Captain Smith of the Titanic, in the series' premiere episode); Batman (as the villainous Sandman, in league with Julie Newmar's Catwoman); three episodes of The Invaders (as a malign variation of the Klaatu persona, culminating in a parallel plot also involving an assembly of world leaders); an episode of I Spy ("Lana"); and two episodes of The F.B.I.