Diana Muldaur Movies
Educated at Sweet Briar College, Diana Muldaur began her New York stage career in 1963, appearing in three Broadway plays--Seidelman and Son, Poor Biros and A Very Rich Woman--back to back. She also played a regular role in the Manhattan-based soap opera The Secret Storm. In 1968, Muldaur appeared in her first film, The Swimmer. Exuding a serenity and maturity beyond her years, she was generally cast in cool, sophisticated roles, often as a deliberate contrast to her less-polished male co-stars: for example, she was a regular on the TV series McCloud (1970-77) cast as rambunctious Marshal Sam McCloud's(Dennis Weaver) low-key lady friend Chris Coughlin. Conversely, she was vitriol personified as barracuda lawyer Rosalind Shays in LA Law (1989-91)--at least she was until her character took a spectacular season--ending plunge down an empty elevator shaft. Other TV programs that have utilized Muldaur on a weekly basis have included The Survivors (1970), Black Beauty (1972), Born Free (1974), The Tony Randall Show (1976), Hizzoner (1979), Fitz and Bones (1981) and A Year in the Life (1987). In addition, she is among the few actors who have shown up in both the original Star Trek (in two guest-star assignments) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (as Dr. Katherine Pulaski). Undoubtedly one of her more enjoyable (and least taxing) assignments was as the voice of Dr. Leslie Thompson on Batman: The Animated Series. Equally busy when not performing before the cameras, Muldaur is a past member of the SAG board of the directors. Diana Muldaur is the widow of actor James Mitchell Vickery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1968
Taking advantage of the illness of his powerful rancher father Claude Roman (Denver Pyle), mean-spirited Jermey Roman (Jeremy Slate) runs roughshod over everyone. In addition to browbeating his sister Mary (Diane Muldaur) and reneging on a legitimate business deal with the Cartwrights, Jeremy also tries to get his father declared mentally incompetent. But by episode's end, Jeremy forcibly learns that there's more to greatness than merely inheriting a great name. First telecast on October 13, 1968, "The Passing of a King" was written by B.W. Sandefur. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, (more)
- 1968
Investigating an ancient civilization, the crew of the Enterprise discovers the preserved brains of three of the civilization's final survivors. The alien beings propose a temporary exchange, wherein they would inhabit the human bodies long enough to construct robotic shells for their minds. After deliberation, Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Ann Mulhall (Diana Muldaur) volunteer for the procedure. The change is successful, but proves to have unexpected side effects -- including an acceleration of bodily processes that means the task must be completed within a brief period of time. Complicating matters further is the fact that the being inhabiting Spock's body no longer wishes to cooperate with the original plan. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In an episode that comes the closest to creator Gene Roddenberry's original concept behind Star Trek (i.e., "Wagon Train to the stars"), the Enterprise is assigned to escort Kollos, the Medusan ambassador, back to his home planet in the company of his human companion, Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), a specially trained psychologist. In an irony-laced situation, Miranda is one of the most hauntingly beautiful women ever seen, while Kollos and the Medusans are a race of brilliant, sublime thinkers whose physical form is so hideous that a glimpse of them results in irreversible insanity for any human -- even Vulcans, with all of their intense mental discipline, can only look upon them with a protective visor -- and she is to spend the rest of her life with them, mind-linked to Kollos. Only Spock (Leonard Nimoy), a native of Vulcan, and Miranda, a born human telepath trained on Vulcan, can have any direct contact with Kollos. Spock discovers that Miranda is jealous (to the point of irrationality) of his Vulcan telepathic ability, his having any contact with Kollos, and knowing that he was the first choice for her assignment (only his devotion to Star Fleet prevented him from taking it). Her jealousy -- motivated in part by a secret she is hiding -- is so intense that even Kollos is repelled by it, jeopardizing the success of the mission. Adding to the tension of the situation is the presence of Lawrence Marvick (David Frankham), one of the Star Fleet engineers who designed the Enterprise and now assigned to build navigational equipment that will allow ships to make use of the Medusans' skills in this area. Once Miranda's mind-meld with Kollos is completed, Marvick falls in love with her and can't abide the notion that she plans to spend the rest of her life among the Medusans. At a social gathering onboard the Enterprise, she warns that someone aboard the ship is thinking of murder. Is her warning genuine or a reflection of her own unsettled feelings? Marvick finally snaps and tries to kill Kollos, with dire consequences for himself, the Enterprise, and Spock. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
John Cheever's "misery in suburbia" short stories, brief and to the point, have always proven excellent TV fodder. Director Frank Perry's The Swimmer, adapted for the screen by Perry's wife Eleanor, is a rare, and for the most part successful, attempt at offering a Cheever story in feature-length form. Dressed only in swimming trunks throughout the film, Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man, embarked on a long and revelatory journey through suburban Connecticut. Lancaster slowly makes his way to his split-level home by travelling from house to house, and from swimming pool to swimming pool. At each stop, Lancaster comes face to face with an incident in his past. Informing Kim Hunter that he once harbored a secret love for her, Lancaster is mildly upset by Hunter's indifference. Elderly Cornelia Otis Skinner is incensed at Lancaster's intrusion in her backyard and orders him to leave. At the next home, Lancaster tries to seduce the nubile Janet Landgard, who'd once baby-sat for his daughters, but she runs away in horror. And so it goes: as each subsequent suburbanite peels off his self-protective veneer, Lancaster grows more and more disillusioned with what he thought was his ideal lifestyle. The more intensely painful episode is the confrontation between Lancaster and ex-mistress Janice Rule (this scene was directed, without credit, by Sydney Pollack). Thoroughly defeated, the all-but-naked Lancaster laboriously makes his way through the Connecticut woods in a blinding rainstorm, desperately seeking out his own home where he fully expects his "loving" wife and daughters to greet him. Not this time. Dismissed as too self-consciously "arty" at the time of its release, The Swimmer's reputation increased over the decades following its release thanks to constant late-night TV exposure. The film represents the first movie work of 22-year-old composer Marvin Hamlisch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, (more)
- 1968
When the skeleton of a shooting victim is unearthed by the Feds, Mafia functionary John Duqesne (a pre-superstardom Burt Reynolds) begins to tremble. He's currently trying to beat one murder rap,and now he's faced with charges for another killing ten years earlier. Further worrying Duquesne is the fact that the Mob has ordered the extermination of the one witness who could seal his doom--his ex-wife Irene (Diana Muldaur). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1969
- PG
Ron Catlin (Charleton Heston) is a pro-football player who realizes his playing skills have eroded. His actions on the field have slowed to the point where retirement looms. His wife Julie (Jessica Walter) has her own fashion-designing business and his former teammate Richie (Bruce Dern) has parlayed his football heroics into a successful auto-leasing company. As "The Cat" loses his legendary quickness, he finds himself ill-suited to join the real world after his pampered isolation in the NFL. He takes to the bottle and to the lure of an illicit affair with Ann (Diana Muldaur). John Randolph plays a realistic coach who can't rely on this fading player's past heroics to win the next big game. Trumpeter Al Hirt and members of the New Orleans Saints appear as themselves. Bobby Troupe plays a local businessman who offers Catlin a job. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Jessica Walter, (more)
- 1969
- R
Barry Newman stars as Tony Petrocelli, a maverick Midwestern attorney. Petrocelli is hired to defend a wealthy doctor (Robert Colbert), accused of murdering his wife. In the tradition of Sam Sheppard, the truculent doctor insists that the killing was committed by a mystery intruder who knocked him unconscious. Thanks to the doctor's healthy extramarital life, the case receives a surfeit of negative press coverage. Since he's already been tried by the public, it comes as little surprise to the doctor that he's found guilty. But during the appeal process, Petrocelli manages to locate a witness who opens the possibility that the murderer was the husband of the doctor's mistress. Five years after the theatrical release of The Lawyer, Barry Newman would star in a TV-series spin-off, Petrocelli. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barry Newman, Harold Gould, (more)
- 1970
In this crime drama, the NYPD assigns U.S. Marshal McCloud to capture a fugitive killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1970
A marshal (Dennis Weaver) from a small New Mexico town escorts a subpoenaed witness to New York City. When his witness is kidnapped, the marshall tries to track him down in the unfamiliar city. During his search, he finds himself in the middle of a murder case involving Puerto Rican nationalists, a beautiful novelist, a Wall Street lawyer and a dead beauty-contest winner. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Weaver
- 1971
- PG
In this western, a train robber is framed by a fellow gang member and sent to prison. The gang member betrayed him so that he could marry the robber's love. To get his revenge, the robber helps out a gang of Chinese whose father, the other guy kidnapped. A showdown between the two leads ensues. Naturally the hero wins it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1971
Shot during a jewelry-store holdup, Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) owes his life to a man (Michael Callan) who rushed to his aid--and then disappeared into the crowd. It soon develops that the good samaritan is actually an AWOL Vietnam veteran who may or may not have killed a comrade in arms. Convinced that the soldier is blameless, Ed puts his life on the line--again--to clear the man's name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
John Vernon, usually cast as a corrupt prison warden, plays a sympathetic (by default!) role in this episode. Escaping from Federal custody, second-echelon mobster Mike Durgom (Vernon) quickly learns that crime boss Nelson Wayland (Gene Lyons) has ordered him killed to keep him from testifying at Wayland's trial. The rest of the episode finds Durgom on the lam from both Wayland and the FBI--in other words, between the proverbial Rock and Hard Place. This is the final offering of The F.B.I.'s seventh season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This crime thriller with occult overtones puts a spine-tingling twist on the Jungian psychological notion of "the shadow." In the '30s, Holland and Niles Perry are 10-year-old twins growing up on an idyllic farm in the Connecticut countryside. Niles is a wholesome, outgoing lad, loved by the whole family. Holland's brooding mischief causes untold trouble. Eventually, the Perry family experiences a series of tragic accidents which may not be accidents. Unraveling the circumstances of these tragedies is a fascinating and subtle business. This film was adapted by Tom Tryon from his novel The Other and includes a film debut by the famous acting teacher Uta Hagen, as the twins' grandmother. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, (more)
- 1973
Call to Danger was a title that had already been applied to two unsold pilot films before this TV movie made its first appearance in February of 1973. Like the previous 1968 Call to Danger, the 1973 film stars Peter Graves as a federal agent who enlists "ordinary" people to solve crimes. Headquartered in Washington DC (where most of this film was shot), Graves selects his erstwhile agents by means of a computer. The case at hand is the retrieval of an underworld informer who has been kidnapped. Peter Graves appeared in Call to Danger even while his series Mission: Impossible was in production; there was talk that Mission: Impossible would soon be cancelled, and Graves wanted a pilot film to fall back on. Come September of 1973, there was neither hide nor hair of Mission: Impossible, Call to Danger or Peter Graves on any network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
In this dark drama, filmed in the Mojave Desert, a conniving wife and her lover leave her husband, who broke his leg, alone in the desert to die. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arthur Hill, Diana Muldaur, (more)
Undoubtedly having second thoughts after turning down Dirty Harry, John Wayne showed up in 1974 in his own "maverick cop" adventure, McQ. Wayne, playing McQ, a veteran detective, turns in his badge when he's officially denied the opportunity of clearing the name of his late best friend, who has been posthumously accused of drug pushing. Investigating on his own, McQ becomes romantically involved with his friend's widow (Diana Muldaur), who unbeknownst to him is up to her neck in police corruption. Considering the usual flag-waving content of John Wayne's 1970s films, it is rather startling to discover that the real villains in McQ are a coterie of crooked cops! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Eddie Albert, (more)
- 1974
- PG
This speculative horror film details the tribulations endured by a specially-selected test group of 11 people who are informed that they will be the only occupants of a nuclear fallout shelter built half a mile below the Earth's surface. Chosen by project coordinator Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman) as a fair cross-section of humanity, the group includes a politician, a businessman, an athlete and an author. As it turns out, the "survivors" are unwitting participants in one of those contrived psychological experiments featured so often on programs like The Twilight Zone. To make matters worse, someone's left a vent open, releasing thousands of ravenous vampire bats. Produced in Mexico, this tepid psycho-thriller plays out like the aforementioned TV drama, albeit padded out to 100 minutes. Said padding seems comprised of equal parts dull dialogue and interminable battles with the winged foes -- which are admittedly quite realistic and make for some genuine creep-out scenes. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Planet Earth was the second of three look-alike attempts by Star Trek maven Gene Roddenberry to launch a futuristic TV series for the 1970s (the first was 1973's Genesis II, and the third was 1975's Strange New World). John Saxon stars as Dylan Hunt, who awakens from suspended animation in the year 2133. The "big war" has come and gone; one of the few surviving pockets of 20th-century civilization is the city of PAX. This 2-hour pilot film details Hunt's adventures in this Brave New World when he is captured and enslaved by a society run by women. He is rescued by the scientists of PAX, presumably as a means of getting Roddenberry's series off the ground. But except for this film, first aired April 23, 1974, Planet Earth never got into orbit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
The Three Guns for New York are a trio of ex-convicts from New Mexico (Neville Brand, Greg Mullavey and James Wainwright). They arrive in Manhattan, seeking out the man who put them behind bars--our old friend Marshall Sam McCloud (Dennis Weaver). The fugitives kidnap McCloud's girl friend (Diana Muldaur) to try to force the lawman to turn over the money they'd abandoned after their last heist. Three Guns for New York was first seen as a 2-hour McCloud TV episode on November 23, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
This 72-minute pilot film of the Charlie's Angels series stars the three original "Angels": Sabrina (Kate Jackson), Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors), and Kelly (Jaclyn Smith). Police rookies stuck in go-nowhere jobs, Sabrina, Jill, and Kelly are hired by the never-seen Charlie (voiced by John Forsythe), who engages their services as private detectives. Their first assignment: finagle the owner of a vineyard (David Ogden Stiers) into confessing to the murder of his partner. David Doyle co-stars as Bosley, the affable liaison between Charlie and his Angels. A ratings powerhouse when it premiered on March 21, 1976, Charlie's Angels resulted in the long-running (and frequently recast) weekly series, which aired from September 22, 1976, through August 19, 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Jim Rockford's onetime cellmate "Charming" Charlie Harris (Tony Musante), comes to Jim to help him beat a murder rap. Though he freely admits to being a serial philanderer, Charlie flatly denies the accusation that he killed his wife, and wants Jim to find Linda Bannister (Diana Muldaur), the girl who can provide with an alibi. Trouble is, Linda's husband Alfred (Warner Anderson) is disinclined to admit that his wife is Charlie's mistress--and he's willing to kill Jim to keep this dirty little secret out of circulation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Telly Savalas wrote and directed this drama about an unconventional psychologist who battles for his own mental health while dealing with the stress of his profession. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Telly Savalas, Laura Johnson, (more)
- 1977
In one of his first acting roles, Arnold Schwarzenegger is typecast as professional bodybuilder Josef Schmidt. Anticipating Arnold's earliest, villainous film appearances, Schmidt is dangerously sensitive to criticism of his chosen profession--a sensitivity that leads inexorably to murder. Who'd have thought back in 1977 that Schwarzenegger would one day forsake the Streets of San Francisco to take up residence in the gubernatorial mansion in Sacramento? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
In this drama, set in Southern California, a widowed firefighter and his kids build a fire-rescue station. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Deadly Triangle was intended as the pilot of a TV action series, to be called Steadman. Accordingly, the leading character is one Bill Steadman, played by Dale Robinette. A former Olympic ski champ, Steadman is now employed as a Sun Valley sheriff. The case at hand in this outing is the murder of a ski-team trainee. After attempting a second Steadman pilot, the producers gave up the ghost. Scripted by Carl (Jaws) Gottleib, Deadly Triangle was first broadcast May 19, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dale Robinette, Linda Scruggs, (more)
