I've been thoroughly enjoying reruns of The Outer Limits recently. All the ones I'd missed as a kid, 1st run. "The Demon With The Glass Hand" (1964) starred Robert Culp (Trent) and Marlene Martel (Consuelo Biros). It's one of the very best of TOL b&w series and I was completely taken by Arlene's fine work as the simple, likely Hispanic, cleaning woman. She's given good material that allows her emotion, dignity and decision; unusual for that TV era for a Hispanic part (including today?). It's a good script for Culp as well and a modern movie on the same script would be a great thing... if modern writers suppressed their mania to make everything explode and replace real looking people with tall skinny models (q.v.: the recent Star Trek movies by Wheeden where ALL the main cast are the same 5'10" and could be from the same frat house. PLEASE go back to making your good stuff, like Firefly, Joss!).
Anyways, I decided to look up Arlene Martel today of IMBD and, to my very happy surprise, find she's not only enjoyed a long career as character actress in some of my fave TV shows (The Fugitive, Star Trek, Hogan's Heroes, etc), but she played one of my fave ST-TOS roles of all time as T'Pring. I had no idea it was the same lady as in TOL. Yes, there could've been more lines, but she got some great ones. In the "Why choose Staan over me..." scene, she's utterly perfectly logical, her delivery a 10.
An even bigger surprise for me... same age as my dad! Unfortunately, Arlene died in 2014. A loss to all of us.
I strongly suggest followers of great TV character actors keep Arlene in mind as you enjoy classic re-runs. Her fine delivery matches her honest good looks in every case I've seen.
