I'm two days late on this, but that's okay. I saw him in lots of stuff growing up watching a lot of TV during the 70s and 80s and reruns of older stuff. I think he was born as an old guy. :)
Posted on 01/29/2018 10:52:15 PM PST by beaversmom
Today, January 28th, This Day in Twilight Zone History and The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia remember actor Burt Mustin, who passed away on this day in 1977 at 92.
Mustin portrayed a homeless man who is helped by Santa Claus (Art Carney) on a magical Christmas Eve in "Night of the Meek." He returned to TZ as Mr. Carlson, one of the senior home residents in the whimsical "Kick the Can."
It's kind of hard to imagine so many senior actors working in Hollywood at that time. The studio system was still pretty much intact and many of them were under contract to MGM, which supplied a steady stream of actors of all ages to film and television. It seems that Hollywood has been focused on youth in the last thirty years. Once in a while we get a Going in Style or a Last Vegas, but back in the 1950s and early '60s, aging actors like Burt Mustin could find steady work.
Mustin (1884-1977) is well remembered by baby boomers as the kindly Gus the Fireman on 14 memorable episodes of Leave it to Beaver. Sitting in his equally aging firetruck, he always had some sage advice for little Theodore Cleaver (Jerry Mathers).
Surprisingly, Mustin made his film debut at the age of 67 in the Ronald Reagan/Rhonda Fleming western The Last Outpost (1951), the same year he made his television debut in The Adventures of Kit Carson. So let's raise a high toast to Burt Mustin and all the wonderful senior actors who filled up the small screen and blazed a timeless trail to The Twilight Zone.
I'm two days late on this, but that's okay. I saw him in lots of stuff growing up watching a lot of TV during the 70s and 80s and reruns of older stuff. I think he was born as an old guy. :)
He was just on a Johnny Carson rerun the other night. He was 90 and still working, promoting a show he was in.
He was great on Andy Griffith. Whenever a show from the late 50s to the mid 70s required an old man he would be on the short list.
Always liked him.
Smile every time I see him on TV
I remember seeing him on The Dick Van Dyke show, too.
That’s great. :)
Yep, seemed like a good guy.
Yep, he was pretty much the go-to guy for that era when it came to an older-guy part. My mom likes him, a lot. He was also on All in the Family.
I always thought he looked like a turtle, minus the shell.
He does. I can see him being cartoonized (I don’t think a real word) into a turtle.
Joe Friday arrested him on Dragnet as the oldest burglar in Los Angeles.
lol...how funny.
Looks like he was on Johnny’s show at least a couple of times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbOtyAYv57M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X87VyDOQcng
That’s kind of him, isn’t it?
Carson asked him about the first World Series he remembered. It was 1903.
Laughing. Incredible. I’d like to see a pic of him as a young man.
-PJ
I still laugh at that more than half a century later, and for years, Gary Larson used the name Gus in his Far Side cartoons which were always a hoot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.