Page 131 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

Mysterious Creatures 111

at First Bite (1979), Hamilton brought his film Before he was “Little Joe” on television’s Two characters from the
career back from limbo with his portrayal of a venerable Western series Bonanza (1959–72), film “How to Make a
comedic vampire. before he was a nearly perfect father on Little Monster.” (DEL

In 1968 Charlton Heston (1924– ), the House on the Prairie (1974–82), and long VALLE GALLERY)
star of The Ten Commandments (1956) and before he was an angel on Highway to Heaven
Ben Hur (1959), for which he won an Oscar, (1984–89), Michael Landon (1936–1991) was
appeared in Planet of the Apes as an astronaut a hairy monster in I Was a Teenage Werewolf
who arrived in Earth’s future to discover that (1957). Landon played a troubled high school
intelligent apes were ruling the planet. He youth who was transformed into a werewolf by
continued his role as an astronaut displaced by a misguided scientist who believed that he was
time in Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970. conducting experiments to improve the
In the grimly futuristic The Omega Man human race.
(1971), Heston is the single human immune The winner of the Best Actor Oscar in
to a terrible virus that is decimating Earth’s 1975 for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as
population after the radiation effects of a Best Supporting Actor in 1983 for Terms of
nuclear war and is turning most of those sur- Endearment, and again as Best Actor for As
viving into murderous mutants. In The Awak- Good As It Gets (1997), in his early years as an
ening (1980), he was an archaeologist faced actor Jack Nicholson (1937– ) squared off
with the decision of whether or not to kill his against two masters of the supernatural in The
daughter, who has been possessed by the spirit Raven (1963) with his portrayal of the son of a
of an ancient mummy. man transformed into a large raven (Peter

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