Movies - TV
One Twilight Zone Actor Was Living The Plot Of His Episode As It Was Filmed
By VALERIE ETTENHOFER
Production of "The Twilight Zone" was often doused with events as unusual as the show, like an episode that explored mortality through the eyes of an elderly couple deeply in love.
In "The Trade-Ins" episode, John and Marie Holt (Joseph Schildkraut and Alma Platt) are given the opportunity to get new, younger bodies, but they can only afford one to do it.
John is made young again, but his youthfulness brings Marie to tears, so he "returns" back. In the end, the pair decide to face old age and death naturally, hand in hand.
According to Marc Scott Zicree's book "The Twilight Zone Companion," there was an unexpectedly heartbreaking reason the episode was so emotional.
Schildkraut's wife was in the last days of her life during the shooting of the episode. "He was undergoing a tragedy at the time," Silverstein shared. "His own wife was dying."
The cast and crew apparently weren't aware of the extent of her illness at the time, but the filmmaker says Schildkraut's wife passed away in the middle of the three-day shoot.