Malachi Throne, R.I.P.

I didn't know Malachi Throne, the prolific character actor who passed away Wednesday at the age of 84 but I have a certain fondness for that kind of performer: The guy who works constantly — year in, year out — never quite attaining wide recognition with the public but so well-respected within the industry that he never quite attains unemployment, either. The Internet Movie Database could save a lotta bandwidth if they just listed the shows he wasn't in. I'm sorry to see obits that peg him as a "Batman actor" or a "Star Trek actor" because those credits were only a few days of work for an actor who played hundreds of roles.

Still, some of us will remember him for his two-episode appearance as False Face on the Batman TV show — the series with Adam West. The show then aired twice a week, Wednesday and Thursday, with the Wednesday show ending in a cliff-hanger. False Face was a villain who wore masks and as a gimmick, the TV Guide didn't tell who was playing him and neither did the end-credits on Part One. Some of the press hyped it as a genuine interest for the audience to solve…and I don't remember if it was said or if we just assumed that the man under the mask was someone really famous and we'd all be shocked to find out who it was…and proud if we guessed.

Thursday at school, that's all some of us talked about: Who was playing False Face? I recall all sorts of theories ranging from Frank Sinatra to Clint Eastwood. One friend of mine was sure it would turn out to be Peter Sellers and while I can't recall what they were, he based his deduction on some clues he detected within the script. None of us guessed Malachi Throne but there was a good reason for that. None of us had ever heard of Malachi Throne. He could have done the episodes without the mask and we wouldn't have known who he was. We expected that at the end, the Dynamic Duo would rip the mask off the villain's puss and we'd see the countenance of John Wayne or John F. Kennedy or somone really famous and unexpected. But they never even showed us what Malachi Throne looked like.

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When the end-credits of the Thursday show identified him, we were all stunned and you could hear a collective "Who?" and maybe a few other words, one starting with "f" shouted around the Southland and probably all across the United States and Canada. We felt like someone who reads a murder mystery, mulls over all the clues…and then finds out that the killer is some character who'd never been mentioned in the story. None of this cheat was Mr. Throne's fault, of course and I still wonder if the producers did that intentionally as a joke on the audience. More likely is that they did have a biggie lined up for the part and that person cancelled at the last minute. (What I would have done is have it turn out to be Adam West playing a dual role.)

Rumor has it Mr. Throne was annoyed that he received so little billing and no unmasking scene. He had every right to be steamed but it sure didn't seem to keep him from getting lots and lots of other work. Guys like that are really the backbone of the acting profession. Not stars. Folks like Malachi Throne.