Before Billy Mumy came along, Charles Herbert
(Saperstein) was the go-to child actor for just about any movie or TV
series that might have interested me during the first 10 years of my
life. He was prominently featured in THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK,
MEN INTO SPACE, THE FLY, THE BOY AND THE PIRATES, 13 GHOSTS, SCIENCE
FICTION THEATER, ONE STEP BEYOND (two episodes), ALFRED HITCHCOCK
PRESENTS, THE TWILIGHT ZONE ("I Sing the Body Electric"), THE OUTER L
IMITS
("The Inheritors")... he was even cast as Patty's brother Ross in the
pilot of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW (later replaced by Paul O'Keefe). Imagine doing all of that before you were 15! His
filmography stops in 1968, when he was 20 - and after that, as happens
with so many child actors whose futures are not properly cared for by
their parents, it's said that he lived a very unhappy life until some
friends pulled him out of his tailspin; in his 50s, he made some new friends and
began meeting with fans on the movie convention circuit. I was saddened to hear that he died on Halloween
night of a heart attack at the age of only 66.
Thank you, Charlie, for
helping my generation to feel like a part of all those great stories.
