The Twilight Zone's Eye Of The Beholder Had Maxine Stuart Crying Very Real Tears
Short of "To Serve Man," the most famous "Twilight Zone" twist ending is probably "Eye of the Beholder." Set in a hospital, the episode follows surgeons and nurses discussing patient Janet Tyler, who's undergone treatment to remove a facial deformity. Miss Tyler's face is hidden behind bandages and the hospital staff are glimpsed only in shadow or from behind — until the third act. It turns out, by the audience's standards, Janet is a blonde bombshell and everyone else is pig-faced. Beauty truly lies in the phrase that gives the episode its title.
Since her appearance is initially concealed, the crew was able to cast two actors as Janet: Maxine Stuart when she's bandaged up and Donna Douglas (future star of "The Beverly Hillbillies") when she's unmasked. (Both actors are no longer with us.)
In 2004, Stuart sat down with the Archive of American Television to discuss "Eye of the Beholder." She was blunt about the reasoning behind the double casting: "I was not pretty enough, so they hired Donna Douglas." Indeed, Stuart was chosen for her voice while Douglas was chosen for her looks. "It was reasonable of them but it was certainly an irony of them in light of the fact [the episode] was about conformity," mused Stuart.
As for the acting that she did have to do, though, Stuart found the bandages weren't a challenge, but a relief.
Acting unseen
This division of labor meant that Stuart had Miss Tyler's most emotional scenes all to herself. Still under the bandages, she vents to her nurses and doctors about how people have always looked at her with disgust. She laments that in having to hide her face, it's like she's "lived [her] whole life inside a cave [...] There's a kind of comfort to living inside this cave. Wonderfully private."
Gradually starting to sob, she begs for the chance to go outside and see the world in all its beauty, but her doctor tells her to wait for the procedure results. The scene is doubly impressive since Stuart had to act through her mummified costume. By acting as Tyler, Stuart discovered that same "comfort" in living with a mask and it made her performance, and tears, all the more real. When asked by the Archive of American Television about how it felt to act bandages pressing down on her, she explained:
"It was wonderful. It was like hiding. [...] I actually cried tears under the bandages. I think it had to do with the hiding, of being in a secret place and being able to just go with it, whereas I've always had trouble crying tears on television because the demand is immediate and it's exposed and somehow I've always had trouble with it. Whereas when it was not immediate and it was not exposed it was very easy to do."
Stuart's words belay another message in "Eye of the Beholder" — knowing that you're being judged by eyes beyond your own can be a terrifying thing.