Space: 1999’s Barry Morse was a familiar face in science fiction. Anthony Wynn interviewed him some years back about his other out-of-this-world appearances...

Barry with Barbara Bain and Martin Landau in Space: 1999 (1975)

Barry in ‘Soft Focus’ (1961), an episode of the series Way Out, hosted by Roald Dahl

In a career spanning seven decades, British/Canadian actor Barry Morse played more than 3,000 roles on radio, stage, television and film. He was a fivetime winner of Canada’s Best Television Actor award and former Artistic Director of the famed Shaw Festival of Canada.

Barry’s character of Professor Victor Bergman in the 1970s television series Space: 1999 is particularly loved by genre fans, but he appeared in many other intriguing outof-this-world productions both before and after that show. Even though he died in 2008 at the age of 89, his work continues to air regularly on television around the world.

One of his earliest sci-fi show appearances was in ‘Soft Focus,’ an episode of the TV series Way Out in 1961. Produced by David Susskind, the show was hosted by noted British author Roald Dahl. Beginning each episode with an inviting “How are you?”, he would then give suitably creepy advice on, for example, how to murder one’s spouse; or he might tell “pleasant” stories of his boyhood spent in Norway where, when somebody died and the ground was frozen solid, they would sharpen the legs and hammer the body into the ground, “like an enormous nail”.

“It featured me playing a successful portrait photographer called Peter Pell,” Barry recalled, “who has discovered an extraordinary chemical. By retouching photos with this strange mixture, he is able to alter the pictures and change the actual faces of the living people!”

Peter suspects his young wife Louise, played by Joan Hotchkis, of committing adultery, so he sets to work on her photo. Upon realizing that she has been rapidly aging, she surprises her husband, who has now been altering his own image. As Barry remembers: “His new, youthful face reveals the truth to her—in a rage, she pours the fluid on Peter’s portrait—a pool of it covering half the picture. He quickly tries to salvage his picture; but fails. When he looks up, half his face has been erased!”