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B Entries Barbara Bain Gene Barry Wesley E. Barry The Beatles Paul Birch Whit Bissell Bill Bixby Jerome Bixby Chesley Bonestell Peter Boyle Adrien Brody Tim Burton   BISSELL, WHIT (1909–1996). American actor. SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND HORROR FILM CREDITS Acted in films: That Lady in Ermine (Ernst Lubitsch 1948); Lost Continent (Samuel Newfield 1951); Target Earth (Sherman A. Rose 1954); The Atomic Kid (Leslie MARTINSON 1954); Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack ARNOLD 1954); Invasion of the Body Snatchers (uncredited) (Don SIEGEL 1956); I Was a Teenage Werewolf (Gene FOWLER, Jr. 1957); I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (Herbert L. Strock 1957); Monster on the Campus (Arnold 1958); The Time Machine (George PAL 1960); The Manchurian Candidate (John FRANKENHEIMER 1962); Seven Days in May (Frankenheimer 1964); Fluffy (Earl Bellamy 1965); Soylent Green (Richard FLEISCHER 1973); Psychic Killer (Ray Danton 1976). Acted in television: "Sound of Murder" (1955), "Dr. Robot," "The Green Bomb" (1956), episodes of Science Fiction Theatre; "Brainwave" (1959), episode of One Step Beyond; "Burglar Proof" (1962), episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; "Nightmare" (1963), episode of The Outer Limits; "The Fastest Gun in the East" (1965), episode of I Dream of Jeannie; "The Peacemaker" (1965), episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; "The Bat Cave Affair" (1966), episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; The Time Tunnel (tv series) (1966-67); "The Trouble with Tribbles" (1967), episode of Star Trek; "The Dark Outpost" (1967), episode of The Invaders; "The Secret City of Limbo" (1970), episode of Land of the Giants; City Beneath the Sea (tv movie) (Irwin ALLEN 1971); "Over the Hill Spy" (1977), episode of The Bionic Woman; The Time Machine (tv movie) (Henning Schallerup 1978); "Kindred Spirits" (1979), "Prometheus" (two parts) (1980), episodes of The Incredible Hulk; "Lost in Translation" (1981), episode of Darkroom; "Trials and Tribble-ations" (1996), episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Whit Bissell functioned as a generic marker: if you saw his unforgettable face in the background of some film, you immediately knew that it was trash. And, with the gradual collapse of the conventional B-movie in the 1950s, and the corresponding rise of the science fiction B-movie, the trash that you saw him in was increasingly science-fictional. This was where Bissell truly made his mark: even when he strayed from the genre later in his career, he almost invariably portrayed a doctor, scientist, or general, exploiting his aura of kitsch gravitas developed from playing innumerable such roles amidst unpersuasively rendered aliens and monsters. Was he a good actor? Of course not, as is amply evidenced by his appropriately laughable star performances as the mad scientists in the laughable I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (although, admittedly, Laurence Olivier himself couldn't have done much with those roles). In fact, Bissell seemed awkward and uncomfortable when he was the center of attention; he far preferred to be standing in the background, whether as a friend reacting to the narrative of Rod TAYLOR's Time Traveler in The Time Machine or as a hapless scientist staring at a jazzed-up television screen displaying the latest antics of James Darren and Robert Colbert in The Time Tunnel. Away from the spotlight, Bissell could contentedly fondle a pipe or twiddle with the dials of some machine, in his own small way contributing, by means of his gray hair and visible maturity, a touch of credibility to the inane goings-on in front of him. As one of the most indefatigable foot soldiers in the science fiction wars of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Bissell must command our sympathy and respect, if not our admiration. Day after day, week after week, Bissell got out of bed, showered and shaved, and went off to perform in whatever part his agent could find, always answering the call no matter how humiliatingly small or desperately stupid the assignment was. Today Bonanza, tomorrow I Dream of Jeannie, next week Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea .... Reliable and likable, Bissell became a favorite of directors ranging from Irwin ALLEN to John FRANKENHEIMER, who gave Bissell some rare upscale exposure in The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May. Never offered a part that represented a challenge, and unable to respond to acting challenges in any event, Bissell found fulfillment in the simple tasks of memorizing his lines and never missing a cue. Behind the scenes, Bissell was a major figure in the Screen Actors Guild, and after retiring from acting in the 1980s, Bissell moved into a home for elderly Hollywood actors and emerged as a leader in their community—surely not because he sought recognition, but only because he felt obliged, as always, to respond to a need. After his death in 1996, manipulated footage from the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" allowed him to reprise a characteristic role as a bland bureaucrat in "Trials and Tribble-ations," an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—even from the grave, he dutifully managed to come back to the set and do Whit Bissell one more time.

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