Vincent Beck(1924-1984)
- Actor
Tall, deep-voiced character actor who started on screen in the
lamentable
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
which may have taken him some time to live down. Thereafter, he was
most comfortable playing the heavy -- and never averse to do so in
monster make-up -- as in
The Time Tunnel (1966)
episode Merlin the Magician (1967). He was also the blue-faced alien hunter
Megazor in the third season episode of
Lost in Space (1965), "Hunter's
Moon". Beck effectively lampooned his sinister screen incarnations in
several installments of
The Monkees (1965), notably in
"The Card Carrying Red Shoes." Beck's theatrical career went back as
far as 1946 when he appeared in "A Flag is Born" on Broadway. He also
had roles in "Peter Pan", "Oliver" and "Irma LaDouce" and was seen in
TV commercials before making his bow in syndicated TV shows. A year
before his death he became president of the New York section of the
Screen Actor's Guild.