Graves needn’t worry about being remember for his schlock, but it’s there. While ’50s sci-fi awarded his brother James Arness pivotal roles in The Thing From Another World (as the Thing) and Them! (as the hero), Graves toiled for Roger Corman, in the actually pretty interesting It Conquered the World; and Bert I. Gordon in the more laughable big big epic Beginning of the End. His sci-fi nadir, however, came with the ludicrous Killers from Space, remembering featuring aliens marked with bulging eyes made from ping pong balls. In the ’70s he returned to genre fare in TV movies like Scream of the Wolf and The Clonus Horror.
Earlier, though, Graves had already earned a spot in film history with a key role in Stalag 17. Then he earned pop culture immortality by starring in TV’s Mission: Impossible, not to mention his pilot in Airplane!
Happy 79th birthday, sir, and many more.
