My Own Best Friend

To Serve Man

It's no secret that one of SSUWAT's guilty pleasures is the square-jawed 1960's heartthrob, slightly seedy, older, used model: see earlier entries for Efrem Zimablist, Jr. and Hugh O'Brien. One of our guiltiest pleasures is the late, great Lloyd Bochner, a smoothly sexy cat with a mellifluous voice which, to cop a phrase apropos of Franchot Tone, "jerked off the consonants and sucked off the vowels."


He also, apparently, had quite a way with toothpicks.

Anyway, Mr. Bochner made countless appearances on television, most memorably expiring after a roll in the hay with Joan Collins on Dynasty, and as a summer stock lothario romancing all of The Golden Girls. On film, he had a somewhat less lofty career: "highlights" would have to include such trash classics as Barbara Stanwyck's entry into the Aging Dame In Distress sweepstakes, The Night Walker (1964); the Carol Lynley version of Harlow (1965) (although he also co-starred with the "other Harlow," Carroll Baker, the same year in the even-trashier Sylvia); and, crowningly, Pia Zadora's penultimate grotesquerie, The Lonely Lady (1983). Frankly, after viewing Bochner waving a garden hose in Zadora's face and sneering, "Is this more your kick?!", we're surprised he didn't win the Golden Globe instead of his chipmunk-cheeked leading lady.


Aside from the legacy he left behind in his work, Bochner also gifted the world with an equally talented and beautiful offspring, Hart Bochner.


Perhaps Lloyd Bochner's greatest career achievement came in the form of "To Serve Man" (1962), one of the most celebrated episodes of The Twilight Zone. It's chilling in its precise evocation of the barely-contained repression and paranoia of the Cold War era. Of course, we also love the slim-cut suits, shirts and ties which Bochner wears: and we practically fainted at the closeup shot of his polished black laceups snuffing out a cigarette. Watch, enjoy, and remember.

LLOYD BOCHNER