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(1922–1983). American actor.
He was first conspicuous in the
anticlimactic conclusion of Psycho,
egregiously miscast, it would seem, as the understanding psychologist who
untangles and explicates at extreme length the twisted psyche of Norman Bates.
Many critics have wondered why a master director like Alfred HITCHCOCK would
spoil his brilliant film with this clumsy expository denouément, but his choice
of a limited actor like Oakland for the role suggests that he did so to make a
point: since our soulless contemporary world destroys or maddens all the warm,
sensitive people we might like and care about, like those played by Janet Leigh
and Tony Perkins, we are left to endure the company of cold, insensitive people
we cannot like and cannot care about, like the man played by Oakland. As
Hitchcock was sometimes willing to treat his actresses in a sadistic manner, he
decided to treat his viewers in a sadistic manner, tormenting them with
Oakland's interminable tirade in order to epitomize the utter wretchedness of
the people they now must deal with in their own daily lives. Does anyone have a
better theory as to why Simon Oakland ended up in that scene, and why he was
allowed to play the role so unsympathetically?
A decade later, Oakland co-starred
in two television movies that led to a series, Kolchak:
The Night Stalker, best described to today's viewers as what The X-Files would have been like if Chris
CARTER had elected to cast two homely, middle-aged men as Mulder and Scully. As
Darren McGavin's credulous reporter enthusiastically investigated one strange
phenomenon after another, it was Oakland's task as his skeptical editor to
snarl and treat him like a fool—the perfect marriage of a one-note actor and
a one-note role. All in all, it's hard to make a series featuring vampires,
zombies, and aliens boring, but somehow, McGavin and Oakland pulled it off.
In a variety of venues—including
cop shows (Decoy, Toma, David
Cassidy: Man Undercover), thrillers (The Satan Bug, Mission
Impossible), comedies (My Favorite
Martian, Captain Nice),
historical dramas (Profiles in Courage,
the television pilot Alexander the Great
[1968]), even a musical (On a Clear Day You
Can See Forever)—Oakland was always competent, never memorable;
his roles in The Twilight Zone
episodes "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" and "The Thirty-Fathom Grave," as a
double-crossing thief and a hard-boiled submarine commander, illustrate his
narrow range. There is, though, one exception to this pattern, his standout
performance in The Outer Limits
episode "Second Chance": completely unrecognizable in monster makeup, and thus
forced out of his usual habits, he gave an involving and surprisingly touching
performance as an alien attempting to recruit humans to abandon Earth and
colonize another planet. He should have worn a rubber mask more often.
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