The Thunder Child

Roger Davis unfortunately was a no-show for introducing his two shows, Alias Smith and Jones: "Smiler With a Gun and The Twilight Zone: "Spur of the Moment," and for the Q & A afterward.

At 2 pm was the guest panel featuring Gene Lesser and Jacqueline Scott.

Guest Panel: Gene Lesser and Jacqueline Scott

Gene Lesser and his wife, actress Jacqueline Scott

Gene Lesser grew up in New York city, in a neighborhood that had no other children, so he became an avid reader and writer. Indeed, he even founded a one-page newssheet, the Madison, which he sold for pennies at the local drugstore. He served in the Army during WWII in a recon platoon, before transferring to and becoming a reporter for the Stars and Stripes. After World War II, he got into writing for television, doing scripts for Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Zane Grey Theatre, Man Without a Gun and Death Valley Days.

However, when a script he sold to Gunsmoke was tampered with by the networks, he decided to give up screen writing, and moved into the management field - representing actors, writers and directors.

Jacqueline Scott started tapdancing at the age of 3, in her hometown in Missouri, and enjoyed being on stage so much that she decided she wanted to be an actress. After graduating from high school she moved to St. Louis, to do work there first in community theater, and then moved to New York. There, she started out doing office work, for General Sarnoff of RCA, but finally started getting roles in Broadway plays.

It was while working on the movie Macabre in 1957 that she met Gene Lesser, who was taking stills for publicity purposes...three months later they were married. They've been married for over 50 years.

Scott had been brought to Hollywood to co-star in William Castle's first "gimmick" movie, Macabre. He'd mortgaged his home in order to get the money to make the movie, and it was shot in seven days. She described all the promotion efforts Castle went through for the film - with an ambulance outside the theater, and nurses within, and insurance policies for the audience in case they "died by fright."

Scott worked mostly in television, with guest-star appearances in many Westerns, such as Bat Masterson and Have Gun, Will Travel, as well as crime dramas such as Perry Mason and later on in The Fugitive. Her science fiction credits included "The Parallel" episode of The Twilight Zone, and two episodes of The Outer Limits. She played Kira, Roddy McDowall's "girlfriend", in two episodes of The Planet of the Apes.

In addition to talking about The Planet of the Apes (which I'll recount in Saturday's installment), she spoke about working on the film Empire of the Ants, (1977) which was filmed on location in Florida. She pointed out that Joan Collins was a trooper. "She did things I wouldn't do. She was wonderful." Collins did a stunt that she certainly wouldn't have done, namely crashing a car into a canal filled with water mocassins. "I told 'em before I left," she said, "I ain't gettin' in no water with no alligators!" But Collins did it without hesitation.

The Solar Guard Reunion

Cadet Ed Pippin and the Solar Guard have had a table at the Festival for several years. In 2003, Ed Kemmer - Buzz Corry in Space Patrol, Frankie Thomas (Tom Corbett in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and Jan Merlin (Roger Manning in Tom Corbett, were guests here, and performed in a "radio re-enactment". Kemmer died in 2004. Frankie Thomas and Jan Merlin returned in 2006 (the year of my first attendance) and did a radio "reenactment" written by Jan Merlin.

From the Solar Guard site Jan, Frankie, and Ed, 2003

After that, I left as I wanted to make sure I had a good seat for the Lee Meriwether and Lesley Aletter panel.

Lee Meriwether and Lesley Aletter

Lesley Aletter and Lee Meriwether

Lee Meriwether had studied acting before she entered the Miss America contest (as Miss California) - indeed, for her "talent" section she performed a dramatic monologue. It was to her that the first "Here she is, Miss America" song was performed, when she won in 1955. After a year fulfilling her Miss America duties, she went into acting. Although her crown sort of opened doors, it was also rather a burden, as the casting people who saw her did not expect much from a beauty queen. However, she proved she could act, and was given role after role.

After a few TV roles, she made her movie debut in 4D Man, starring Robert Lansing, in 1959. She continued guest-starring in TV series, such as a stint on The Phil Silvers Show, until winning her next movie role - Miss Kitka aka Catwoman in the movie Batman (1966).

She told how she got the part...when she went into the audition she saw that she had so many competitors that she had to do something to make the casting people remember her. So when she went into the room, she greeted everyone in a voice in a slightly higher register, then curled into a chair like a cat and started licking her hand, and then kneading her hands on her script. When she spoke her lines, it was in a low voice, with as much of a purr as she could put into it. And she got the part.

Lesley Aletter

Meriwether married Frank Aletter in 1958, and had two daughters, Kyle, who is an actress, and Lesley, who is a stuntwoman. The children grew up on the sets of the shows on which their mom worked - in particular Barnaby Jones, in which she co-starred with Buddy Ebsen. Lesley Aletter auditioned a few times, but did not like the process, and because she'd been good at gymnastics as a kid, decided to become a stuntwoman. She was on Circus of the Stars a couple of times as herself; her first stunt job was on the movie Nightflyers. She doubled for Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest and Alien Resurrection, and did utility stunts on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines among other TV and movie work.

It was fun to watch mother and daughter interact, as Lesley explained what was done to her for Snakes on a Plane (she got to die after being bitten by a snake), Meriwether held her head in her hands and grimaced occasionally.

Although Meriwether did not get to reprise her Catwoman role in Reurn to the Batcave, Lesley did stunt double for Julie Newmar.

Among other amusing anecdotes, Meriwether was explaining how her stunt double on Batman climbed down into the submarine and then fell, doing it very poorly, and then Lesley jumped up and enacted it - hilarious!

Below are a couple of photos supplied by Chris Krieg, a graphic artist and science fiction fan. He came to the Festival to meet Lee Meriwether.

He brought his artwork to the Festival and showed it to Ms. Meriwether, then persuaded her to try her hand at the cockpit of the Terra IV.

Lee Meriwether masters the Terra IV cockpit

Continue to Saturday's events.