Commando Cody Speaks continued page 2

FAX: One of your early film roles was in Million Dollar Mermaid [1952] with Esther Williams and Victor Mature.

WALLACE: That was a circus-type picture. I played a daredevil pilot, which led me to be cast in The Big Sky [1952], directed by Howard Hawks and starring Kirk Douglas. That was fantastic. Howard Hawks was one of the greatest directors who ever worked in Hollywood. He always spoke softly. If there was a thousand people on the set, he would still speak softly.

I had a scene in a general store; I played a local tough guy. Kirk Douglas comes in and orders some supplies. Howard had blocked out the scene for me, so while Kirk was at the counter giving his order, I would come up to him, and look him up and down, like, "What the hell are you doing in town?" Just before Howard called "Action," there was a broom hanging down, so I took one of the straws out of the broom and started chewing on it. When Howard called "Action," I walked over to Kirk and looked at him with the straw in my mouth, and walked away. Kirk went to Howard, and Howard took me aside. I figured, "Oh, boy, I'm in trouble now!" But he said, "That piece you did with the straw, it was just great. Leave it in! It's wonderful! Only this time, take a slow count of three while you're sucking on the straw before you make the turn."

Well, Kirk had a magnificent wardrobe which was all leather, and he was wearing a tiger's tooth or something like that on a chain around his neck. I go up to Kirk, and I'm sucking on the straw. I count to three, and he takes the tiger's tooth and puts it up to his lips. He used my business to dismiss me.

FAX: You were the first actor to portray Commando Cody, in the Republic Pictures serial Radar Men from the Moon. [Radar Men marked the debut of the character, although it was the second entry of a "quartet." The 1949 serial King of the Rocketmen introduced "Rocketman"; Radar Men followed, then came the serial Zombies of the Stratosphere [1952]. Commando Cody, Sky Marshal of the Universe, a 26-minute featurette, was released theatrically in 1953. It premiered again on television on NBC, as 12 syndicated episodes run and rerun on Saturday mornings. The late Judd Holdren played the character in Zombies and Commando Cody.]

WALLACE: My agent at the time was Maureen Oliver, a sweet little Irish lady who started representing me when I was in dramatic school. She sent me out to Republic for a role as a heavy in some new picture they were doing. So I arrived at 10:00 a.m., and I read for the producer and director. After I read, they asked if I had any footage of myself. I had just started in the business, but, luckily, I had an episode of Fireside Theater. I gave them the film; they said, "Hang around, we want to take a look at it." I was there until about 3:00 p.m., and I was getting ready to go home. Finally, they called me in and said, "We saw the film. We're doing a serial called Commando Cody, Sky Marshal of the Universe [the film's original title] and we think you'd be right for the part of Commando Cody." Now, the part I originally auditioned for was the heavy in this serial-the role that Clayton Moore ended up playing. After playing The Lone Ranger, Clayton ended up playing a heavy in this serial.

The funny thing about Clayton Moore and the whole Lone Ranger thing was that all the actors I knew-including myself-tried out for that part at the time. That was a massive casting call. They had us all do the test in the mask. We'd stand in a corner-with a mask and a cowboy hat on-and we'd go through this dialogue with some guy off-camera feeding us lines like, "We must go to the West now, Kemo Sabe." Damn silly when you think about it now.

I think I went to the Lone Ranger audition when they were trying to replace Clayton. Johnny Hart wound up getting the role, and did it for one season. You know, I can empathize with Clay on this, because I never got an answer as to why I was never asked back to reprise my character of Commando Cody in the series of short films that became the television series, two years after it was released to theaters in the East. I think it was because I was doing a play in New York at the time, and that's how they got Judd Holdren to do [the serial] Zombies of the Stratosphere and then carry on with Commando Cody.

FAX: One would imagine that making a Republic serial was more of a physical workout than an acting workout.

WALLACE: Radar Men from the Moon was a physical challenge. All the moon scenes were shot in Red Rock Canyon. It was 111 degrees, and here I am in a big leather jacket, with an aluminum helmet, rocket packs on my back, and woolen slacks. It seemed interesting to me that they would costume this character in regular woolen slacks-which could have caught fire in the first take-off-rather than devise some special fireproof pants for their hero.

There were some difficult special effects sequences, like when they put me on a platform in front of the production screen. The platform they built was about four feet high, and there was a two-by-four that laid flat. I would lay down on the two-by-four, and then the crew would put the Rocket Man suit on me, and zip up the jacket around me and the board, so it wouldn't show. As I recall, we did all of that in one day. I believe this rear screen projection system was a process called techna-process. The same process probably still exists now, under a different name. They took footage of clouds that had been shot from a plane-I believe they do it with helicopters today-stock shots, if you will; they rear-projected it onto a cyclorama and put me on a platform in front of it, and I did the flying sequences.

The huge ray gun that I steal from Rettick's laboratory was heavy as hell out there in that Red Rock sun. The other thing I remember is the special effects guys rigging a gun with twine and pulling it out of my hand in one of the episodes. The Lydecker Brothers [Howard and Theodore, Republic's special effects specialists] were great to work with. They knew the score. I remember the miniature of Commando Cody's rocketship which is about three or four feet long, that you see in its actual size at the end of the show, when it plows through the window and hits Billy Bakewell in the stomach. That miniature rocket was flown on sets that were made to scale by the Lydecker Brothers. They had everything down to a science. If you shot a certain explosion on land or sea, their techniques would vary between both situations, right down to how many frames per second would be shot on a particular gag. Those two guys were amazing.

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