DICK TUFELD INTERVIEW Original Voice of the `Lost in Space' Robot By Jahred Haynes 12/16/97 Q: I understand you will be the voice of the Robot in the upcoming New Line film "Lost in Space". How does it feel being the only original cast member playing their original role? A: I never ever think about it in those terms. I enjoyed working on the TV series, and I'm very pleased to be working on what seems to be an outstanding motion picture. As you well know, a number of people in the original cast will be doing cameo roles. Mark Goddard's role is actually somewhat larger than a cameo role. I'm very pleased that they're also in the motion picture and, uh, I'm pleased just to be here, be around and still able to do it. Still trying to get it right. Q: How is your performance different in the movie than in the TV show? A: Well, it's kind of interesting. As many people know, in the TV show Bob May was inside the Robot. As he spoke he pressed a button in one of his hands -- and the light in the robot's collar/chest flashed in synchronization with every syllable. So they brought me into post-production. They brought me into a studio, and gave me earphones and looped me in with voice loops of Bob's lines. That was the major thing -- it didn't matter creatively how I read a line. All that really mattered was that I be in sync with the light flashes. From a creative sense, I never had a sense of doing anything very creative in the TV series -- mainly because I was locked into Bob's timings and readings. From my standpoint it was kind of mechanical and technical sort of work, which I enjoyed doing and enjoyed getting it right. In all candor, that was where it was in my head at the time. The movie is somewhat different because I didn't have to be in sync with anything -- I've tried to be a little more creative. Stephen Hopkins, who is a very gifted director, was there on the set directing me for all the Robot lines in the movie. He wanted a more expansive, Robot reading on some of these things. And of course, in the motion picture, the first robot that we see in the motion picture is not exactly like *the* `Lost in Space' Robot, but it is a huge massive robot. It had different qualities than the Robot later has in the motion picture. So he wanted an appropriate sound and appropriate readings for that kind of looking robot. So the demands were entirely different. In a sense I had chance to expand more and give more of a "performance" in the read than I had a chance to do in the classic TV series. Q: When did you notice that you had a gift for voices? A: [He laughs] I'm still looking. I'm not sure I ever did. No, with me, I tell you -- it was when I was a kid. There was no television -- there was radio. And I grew up in Pasadena and I used to listen to the radio and hear all these voices and was fascinated by this. I had my favorites -- it got to be so that I knew every announcer by voice. When I turned twelve, my Mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday. The CBS Radio station in Los Angeles had a tour of the facility -- I told her I'd love to go there. So for my twelfth birthday, for my present, she took me to the radio station, which thrilled me. And I thought "God this is what I want to do, this is wonderful." It's what I wanted to do since I was twelve years old. And I was very lucky to be able -- because not many people get to go through life doing exactly what they want to do, and I got to do it. And was fairly successful at it. That was very satisfying, and really in retrospect, a great thrill for me. Q: Did you really have to work on "creating" your voice? Or did you just really want an announcing career from childhood on, and were fortunate enough to have a great voice? A: To answer your question, I'm not sure about a great voice. I really *wanted* to do it, and was really fortunate enough to have the vocal equipment to be able to try to do what I wanted to do. The other thing that was very fortunate for me was that when all this was taking place, I started working at a station part-time in high school and summers. It was during World War II, and there was no such thing as a woman announcer in those days -- there was great gender bias. A voice on the radio *had* to be a male voice, and most men were in the service. If a guy could walk, he was in service -- but I was under 18. So I was able to hang around stations and get work and have an opportunity to learn and improve -- which normally would never have happened without a great passage of time and maybe if I had moved to a very small market. But I was fortunate from that standpoint. And I did really work on it and get better, and got skilled. A lot of guys have these fabulous voices. I never felt like I had a fabulous voice, or that kind of ability. I thought I had to work very hard at what I did and try to get it done with interpretations and other things. Q: What other voiceover work have you done? A: In the course of my career I've done a great many shows as an announcer, because that's what I do. I was on staff at ABC for 5 years. I anchored the news in the mid-50s at the CBS TV station and the ABC station here in Los Angeles. Did news, did sports. I did a lot of shows -- I think there was 16 Grammy shows I was the announcer on, a number of Emmy shows; I worked on the ABC movie of the week for 7 years, which was really terrific. I did a show called the "Hollywood Palace" which was the Hollywood equivalent of the “Ed Sullivan Show.” That was on for 7 or 8 years. That was *terrific* because I got a chance to do that in front of an audience. And over the period of that time every performer, every singer, every dancer every novelty act in show business walked across or performed on the Hollywood Palace stage. “Peyton Place,” the “Julie Andrews Show,” “Tom Jones” -- I did a lot of shows, so it was terrific being an announcer then. For about 20 years I was the voice of Walt Disney in all the motion picture trailers. The first thing I ever did for Disney I was the announcer "Zorro," which as folks may know Guy Williams [the original Dr. John Robinson] starred in. I did a lot of commercials, and promos for soap operas. This is essentially what I do, and I'm still trying to get it right. Q: Can you name some of the best and worst times you had in the business? A: The worst times -- hmmm. It was in the very early days of television -- so early that they didn't have such things as teleprompters or cue cards. I was doing a live commercial for some local company during the Madison Square Gardens fights, which was very popular and got great ratings. It was the network feed, and we go to this live commercial that I've committed to memory. Not *only* did I totally forget the commercial copy , but I stood there and said "Good evening, tonight's main event is brought to you by, by, by...uh, um..I've forgotten the name of the sponsor." Which I thought in the history of television had never been done. Never, ever. It was awful. Then I reached in my pocket, and looked up the name of the company. Then all I could think of was, “My God, I forgot the name of the sponsor, this has never been done,” and *continued* to blow it. I thought I would never work again, and was astonished that I ever did. As far as good memories -- I can't think of one defining great moment. I really have enjoyed the work. In retrospect the work I did on the `Hollywood Palace' was really satisfying. I had an opportunity to get close to and have a first-hand look at the great performers in show business -- comedians, the singers, the musical people. Every week I could hardly wait to get in there and work on the show. Q: How did your family feel about your talent? Supportive/non-supportive? A: Oh, very supportive. I was fortunate, too, because they knew that this was what I wanted to do. In the early days of everybody starts out and struggles, and it was tough. Also, you hear about a lot of money being made by very successful voiceover people these days. And this is true. But in those early days, this was not a high-paying career that I had chosen for myself. My father was in the office furniture business, he owned his own company. Of course he wanted me to come into business with him, and I didn't want any part of it. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. They were in fact, always very supportive of me. They always encouraged me to succeed at that which I was trying to do. I've always taken the same attitude towards our four kids. They do what they want to do, but it's not always easy -- to encourage them to do exactly what they want to do. Q: How did you get the voice job of the Robot? A: When I was 18 years old, I was working one summer at KLCA-LA radio, and I used to announce shows and do station breaks, etc. There was a literary agent named Irwin Allen, who must have been, I'm guessing, 35 years old at the time, who would walk in and nod to me, and I'd nod to him -- I was just a kid at the time. He had a Hollywood gossip show, and I'd spin the theme music for it and announce him, for 15 minutes once a week. Then he'd leave and nod to me, and I'd nod to him. That was the extent of our conversation. Twenty years go by, and he was walking out of the commissary at 20th Century Fox and there was a guy named Emmett Labry, Jr. who was in the business affairs department. Irwin ran into Emmett and said that he had a new series going on air in a few weeks. "We need a narrator and is there anybody you can think of?' Emmett was a friend of mine, and said "How about Dick Tufeld?" In one of the most astonishing statements I've heard repeated to me, Irwin turned to Emmett and said "Dick Tufeld, my oldest and dearest friend -- great idea!" Which I think is pretty funny. Irwin contacted my agent, and they got an audio tape of my voice doing some narration. Irwin liked it and I became the narrator of the show. About two weeks later I got a call from Irwin's office asking me to read for a robot character. So I go in there, and think this is good. He hands me some copy, and I say "Irwin, I presume what you are looking for a mechanical, robot-ian kind of robot sound." He looks at me and says "My dear boy, that is precisely what I do not want. This is a very highly advanced culture in the year 1997." Of course that seemed to be very far away to everybody [chuckle]. "I want a cultured low- key voice, (I would equate this with the voice of computer Hal in "2001"), an Alexander Scourby" -- the wonderful NY actor and narrator voice who has passed on - and he said “that's what I'm looking for.” So I started reading for Irwin with my best Scourby imitation, and I'm not coloring the words and I'm doing an unemotional read and I'm saying "Warning that does not compute." He says no, that's not it, and I do it again, and then he says no, that's not it, and I try something else and that's not it. All this time I'm trying to do my best Alexander Scourby imitation. And he finally says to me, after about 10 minutes, “Well Dick, I appreciate you coming in. To be honest with you, you're not getting this, so I have to look further for this. But you're still the narrator on this show.” And I say to Irwin, "Thank you very much." I take my reading glasses off and start packing up my attaché case. And God knows why I even did this. I say to Irwin, "Let me try one more thing for you just before I go." And now I read the line in my best mechanical, robot-ian kind of way and I say "Warning that does not compute." And he says "Jesus Christ, that's the Alexander Scourby approach I was looking for, what the hell took you so long?" Honestly, I had to literally turn away from him, so as not to laugh in his face, because I was so convulsed. It was the classic example of what people say they want, and what they are actually looking for. They are two different things. In a sense I was *very* fortunate to become the voice of the Robot, because if I had not said "let me try one more thing" as I was walking out obviously I would never have been the voice of the Robot. It was a kind of a fluke the way it happened. Q: Do you have a favorite episode from the television series? A: Well, being the voice of the Robot, I suppose my favorite episode would be one where the Robot had a major role. There was a show called "Deadliest of the Species" where there was a lady robot, who I thought was very well designed, by the way. She was basically a very evil robot who was trying to entice the Robinson Robot into Evil -- to destroy the Robinson family and go off with her. He was in love with her or something, and she was evil. And the lines were hysterical --they were great parody, over-the-top. It was a funny episode I thought. I suppose that maybe was my favorite episode, for very personal reasons. Q: Are you retired? A: No, I'm still trying to do it right. I still work. In fact, Disney World in Orlando is doing a “Very Merry Christmas Parade,” which will be on ABC this year. And then there is their Easter show I do. I go in and do other shows and commercials. I'm not particularly totally active these days, and that's fine with me. But when something comes up that is of interest to me, I go in and do it. Q: Did you ever imagine that “Lost in Space” could make a strong comeback? A: No, never. Absolutely not. Wearing a critic's hat for a moment -- the “Lost in Space” TV series was very interesting and a rather well-written show I thought, the first year in particular. After that it took on a different quality, which had a lot to do with what CBS was looking for, what they thought would be successful. At the time of the show though, we never thought of it as being a great, quality kind of show. Of course, like every project I ever worked on, one day, for whatever reason, it goes off the air. And you know that. When the show was canceled after three years, that was that. I said, "OK, I was glad I did it. It was an interesting project." Since I was the narrator and the voice of the Robot, I made decent money on it and I was also free to do other things while I was doing the show. I never thought of this as being a legendary kind of project. Then in 1975 or `76 I was back east talking to a TV production class and the professor of the class (about 125 youngsters) asked me to tell him some of the things that I had done so he could introduce me. So I thought up a list of what I thought were prestigious things, that I was proud of. And the last thing I put on was "Lost in Space." He's introducing me and going through this list of credits. The class sat there impassively listening. And then he said, "Oh, and Mr. Tufeld was the voice of the Robot in `Lost in Space.'" And now I hear a kind of a murmur, and I see peoples' heads turning to each other, and the murmur got louder and then they started applauding. And I thought to myself, "Geez what is this?" I was astonished -- it was about 9 years after it had gone off the air. But these were youngsters who had grown up listening to `Lost in Space." And for the first time in my life, I thought, "My God, this is amazing. This show, this character really means something to these people." It was the first inkling that I had of this significance. And as the years went on, this just grew and grew. Q: What does this mean? A: I played a role that became a beloved character. "Lost In Space" became a show *about* Dr. Smith, Will Robinson and the Robot. And now it means nostalgia. Obviously, this is a show that a lot of people, not just people who were kids in `65 or `66, have seen. It's been in syndication ever since and seen around the world. Young people to this day when they hear the Robot -- there is somehow the same nostalgic appeal as to the youngsters who first watched the show on CBS. Q: That must be a gratifying thing in your career. Because most of your other work has been more supporting -- doing a lot of things to enhance productions and not as "memorable" to the audience as the Robot character. A: I really grew up and did the kind of work I wanted to do. But there is no question that when my career is summed up, and when I leave this earth -- this character and this show is absolutely and totally what I will be remembered for, which is astonishing and amazing. Q: What advice could you give for upcoming stars to make it in your profession? A: I don't give anybody advice, really. People make it and become inordinately successful for a variety of different reasons. I think that the advice I'd give anybody would be follow your star, try not to get dissuaded, it’s never easy, it’s always tough, work is always hard to come by. Try to have faith in yourself and try to keep going. Try to accept the one thing that is pervasive in our business, which is rejection. If you hang in there and you have the skills and the talent, like everything else it somehow comes out and you'll make it. Keep trying. The other thing that I should mention is that in the very early days of the business, no actor in the world would be caught dead doing voiceover work in a commercial. It was considered prostituting your art, and no actor would consider it. There were a handful of announcers who did the bulk of the voiceover work. I was fortunate, because I was able to this kind of work, and do it successfully. I was able to earn a very gratifying living and make a fair amount of money doing it . As time went on, actors suddenly realized the amount of money that was to be made doing commercial work. So actors started doing commercial work. They are primarily the people that do commercials now. They are all actors, or would-be actors. I think that's fine. There is enough work out there for everybody. Q: One final question, what do you think about the resurgent interest in "Lost in Space" -- new toys, new fans, etc.? A: Well, this will sound like a self-serving remark that I'm about to make. I think it's absolutely wonderful! I don't know how long it is going to last, but now that it is here, it is terrific. I think everybody involved with it is having a lot of fun with it. I think it's great. Like everything else, perhaps one day it will fade away. Meantime it is terrific. Hopefully it will get bigger. From the footage I've seen, when I was back there in London working on it, it is really impressive-looking stuff -- it looks terrific. There is enormous interest. I think the show is getting as much pre-release publicity as any movie I've run across in a long time. I think it will be successful, and if it is, there will be a sequel. And there are even conversations about a running TV series and even an animated series. Who knows where this will all end? Stay tuned -- we'll all find out together. [He laughs] Back to Alpha Control

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