Malachi Throne
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Malachi Throne (born December 1, 1928) is an American character actor, most noted for his roles on Star Trek and It Takes a Thief.
Throne was born in New York City. He first appeared on stage at the age of 10 in 1939 in the New York Parks Department production of Tom Sawyer as Huckleberry Finn.
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[edit] Television career
Throne was a popular guest star on many television shows of the 1960s and 1970s including The Defenders, Naked City, Ben Casey, The Untouchables, and also co-starring, with Robert Wagner, on the ABC TV show It Takes a Thief.
He made two appearances in the CBS TV series Mission: Impossible, in seasons 1 and 4, in the late 1960s. He also appeared twice in the Irwin Allen series The Time Tunnel, most notably in the episode "The Death Merchant", as Machiavelli, lost in time at the Battle of Gettysburg as well as co-starring in the episode "Night Of The Long Knives."
[edit] Roles in Star Trek
Throne provided the voice of "the Keeper" in the Star Trek's first pilot episode, "The Cage", which did not air in its original form until 1988, though most of the episode was included within the two-part episode "The Menagerie", when it aired in 1966. By that time, the Keeper's voice had been re-dubbed by another actor, [1] but Throne was hired to play another role in "The Menagerie," which was technically a dual role: a commodore in Star Fleet named José I. Mendez, the officer in charge of the starbase where the story begins, and a replica of him created by Talosian illusion, who presides at Spock's court martial.
For the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation he played Pardek, a Romulan senator, in the two-part episode "Unification".
In 2004, Throne appeared in the second episode of the Star Trek Fan Series New Voyages, "In Harms Way", playing a Klingon.
[edit] Roles in Batman
One of his strangest roles was as the villain "False Face" on the ABC Batman series. The character, who used a variety of disguises to effect his nefarious schemes, wore a semi-transparent mask when not in the midst of his crimes. The mask rendered Throne's real face unrecognizable on screen. Playing off of this effect, but against Throne's wishes, the show's producers wrote the on-screen credit as "? as False Face", which made sense for such a campy show, but which denied Throne his credit. However, at the end credits of the episode, "Holy Rat Race," his full name was finally given full credit.
Later, he appeared in animation as the voice of the vigilante "Judge" on The New Batman Adventures.
[edit] Role in Babylon 5
In the 1990's, Throne became known to a new generation of TV sci-fi fans as the assassinated Centauri Prime Minister in the Hugo Award winning episode "The Coming of Shadows", from Babylon 5 's second season. His character's death ensures that the Centauri will pursue a costly war, with tragic repercussions that drive one of the many plot-lines in the TV series' five year narrative (arc).
[edit] Theatre career
As of 2007, Malachi Throne lives in southern California and does local theatre work there. Throne is a member of the Theatre West company in Hollywood, CA, where he is scheduled to appear in "Mornings at Seven". He has also won critical acclaim for several performances with The Fountain Theatre, based in Los Angeles.
[edit] References
- ^ The current version of "The Cage" uses the soundtrack from "The Menagerie", with the re-dubbed voice of the Keeper, except for one line of dialog which was not used in "The Menagerie", in which Malachi Throne's much deeper voice is suddenly and explicably heard from the original "Cage" soundtrack.
[edit] External links
- Malachi Throne at the Internet Movie Database
- Malachi Throne article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
