TV and Movie Characters From My Childhood Who Still Inspire Me Today

James Bond

In some ways it's difficult to describe just how much James Bond has meant to me in my life. My introduction to the character — agent 007 for Her Majesty's Secret Service — came with 1965's Thunderball in the form of Sean Connery, who at that point was playing him for the fourth time. I only specifically remember one sequence from the theatre (I was only five at the time), involving Bond on a traction machine that threatened to split him in half. But that experience was so profound that it instantly turned me into a Bond fan. Flash forward 50 years and Bond is still going strong (the 25th film is being released next year) and so is my passion for the character. To be clear, I never imagined, like many audience members have, that I'm actually Bond. I would have been more than happy being his sidekick.

I've been there as the tone and the actors have changed, with Sean Connery giving way (briefly) to George Lazenby before returning for one film, followed by Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. Some films may be better than others, but I can't think of a franchise that I'm more forgiving of. If I'm disappointed by a particular film, the response is usually, "Ah, they'll get it right next time."

One of my favorite movie experiences? Beginning each film with the Bond theme and gun barrel moving across the screen, and concluding with the words "James Bond Will Return". Perfect bookends!

Captain James T. Kirk

Not even sure how this happened, but I was introduced to Star Trek shortly after the show had made its debut in 1966, though as a kid I simply viewed it as a cool show with a starship, lasers, aliens and a trio of very cool characters in the form of Captain Kirk, the guy with the ears (Mr. Spock) and Bones. I stuck with it through the end of its original run in 1969, and then started watching reruns, becoming obsessed with it like so many other people.

Throughout the 1970s I began recognizing much of the show (but far from all of it) as a profound look at where we were as people and in society, only projected into the future. At the center of it was William Shatner as Kirk, a man of action with a brilliant military mind who also had a keen insight into what we could achieve as a species. Despite those infamous over the top moments, Shatner turned out to be oh-so-cool as Kirk. And because of him, I've stuck with this franchise through 13 feature films, an animated show, and five live action spin-offs. I may have enjoyed them all, but nobody puts the Shat in the corner!

Christopher Jennings

By the mid-1960s I'd fallen in love with the old Universal horror movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, Frankenstein vs. The Wolfman, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein…. well, you get my point. But one day in 1968 I inadvertently caught an episode of a daytime horror soap opera called Dark Shadows, which featured a variety of supernatural creatures. One of them was a werewolf, actually a dude named Christopher Jennings, who captured my imagination. How much? Let's put it this way, my family thought my confirmation name of Christopher was for St. Christopher. It wasn't. And, hey, don't breathe a word of that, especially to them.

Barnabas Collins

Here's the flip-side of my fascination with Dark Shadows. Christopher Jennings/the werewolf may have been the first character that caught my attention, but there was no comparison to Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins. Always a fan of that particular brand of the undead, I found this guy endlessly fascinating and the character so richly developed. Flash forward to the 1980s and there was a period researching a Dark Shadows book where I actually got to meet Frid and spent considerable time hanging out with him reflecting on the show and his career. Definitely a treasured memory.

Oscar Madison and Felix Unger

At the ripe old age of eight I went to the movies with friends to see The Odd Couple, a movie starring Walter Matthau as sportswriter and slob extraordinaire Oscar Madison, and Jack Lemmon as neatnik photographer Felix Unger. This was a film about a couple of divorced guys who move in together to save money and end up driving each other crazy. Why it made such an impact on a kid is beyond me, but I loved the premise, the characters, and the jokes were great, like Oscar saying, "Felix, you leave these little notes all over the apartment: 'We're out of toilet paper, F.U.' It took me two hours to figure out that F.U. meant Felix Unger." Love it!

Two years later the concept switched to television, with Jack Klugman as Oscar and Tony Randall as Felix, and I loved that version even more. How much? Whereas most kids playing on the streets of Brooklyn were playing one sport or another, my friends and I actually "played" The Odd Couple. Johnny was Oscar, Raymond was Felix, and I was our original character Joe Schmoe, a guy who could be neat one minute and sloppy the next. Hey, it's what we did.

Caesar/Cornelius/Planet of the Apes

Before Star Wars or the Star Trek films, there was Planet of the Apes, the first real film series I'd ever seen (James Bond was separate adventures, these ended up telling an overall story). The premise of the 1968 original (celebrating 50 years in 2018) is astronauts from today travel 2,000 years into the future, where evolution has been reversed and apes rule supreme, while humans are savages. This would lead to the sequels Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape From… (1971), Conquest of… (1972), and Battle For… (1973), as well as the live action TV series (1974) and animated series (1975). Before the whole thing started again in 2011 with *Rise of…, followed by _Dawn of… (2014) and War For… (2017).

Needless to say, I love me some apes, particularly actor Roddy McDowall as the chimpanzee Cornelius in in the first and third films of the original cycle, and his own son, Caesar, in the fourth and fifth. Such truly amazing performances through makeup that could have restricted conveying true emotions, but didn't.

Carl Kolchak

He was a reporter played by Darren McGavin, who was willing to risk pretty much everything to make sure that the public was presented the truth by the press. Even if that truth involved vampires, stranglers, zombies, Jack the Ripper, UFOs, werewolves, bayou creatures, living knights of armor, witches, headless motorcycle riders, etc., etc. The character was introduced in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker (where he pursued a vampire in Vegas), returned the following year in the TV movie The Night Strangler, and, again, in 1974 in the weekly series Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

By that point I already knew I wanted to be a writer of some sort, so definitely identified with Kolchak from that point of view. And then he got to…uh, hang out with all those monsters that I loved so much. What a combo!

Steve Austin, The Six Million Dollar Man

As a lover of comic books, this 1973 TV movies turned TV series the following year, was right up my alley. Lee Majors is astronaut Steve Austin, who, following a terrible accident, is reconstructed with bionic parts that gives him extraordinary abilities, which he uses to carry out missions for the government. In the early days, it was James Bond type adventures (much smaller scale, of course), but things got wacky later with things like Big Foot, aliens and the like. It may have gotten a little out there, but I loved this show, and am looking forward to The Six Billion Dollar Man feature film to star Mark Wahlberg.

Wonder Woman

Yeah, yeah, there's no denying how awesome Gal Gadot is now as the Amazon Princess, but back in 1975 she was played by Lynda Carter, who was awesome. When the show debuted, it was set during the original comic book's World War II, but in year two it transferred to the present. The plot of the series…..oh, crap, I can't remember. Actually, I don't think I knew then, either, but I was 15 and have you seen Lynda Carter in her costume?

Jaime Sommers/The Bionic Woman

Whereas I didn't really pay attention to the plots of Wonder Woman for obvious reasons, I really enjoyed the spin-off from The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman. I was so used to male action heroes, that to have Lindsay Wagner play injured tennis pro (and Steve Austin love interest) turned bionic agent Jaime Sommers was, to 16-year-old me, something of a revelation. Added to it was the fact that she was such a terrific actress that she made it all seem so real. And for the record, I genuinely loved when they did crossover episodes.

Rocky Balboa

While I recognize that I have so cleverly hidden the fact that I'm not a sports guy throughout this piece, there is one exception: the character of boxer Rocky Balboa as played by Sylvester Stallone. Besides turning me into a boxing fan (somewhat), it was the message of the films that got to me. When the original film came out in 1976, I was all of 16 and really took to heart the message to find your dream, and go for it. You have to take a shot. You may not win, but you'll be better off for trying. Move ahead 30 years, and Stallone is releasing Rocky Balboa, and for me, at the age of 46, the message was just as profound: don't give up.

Here's what Rocky says to his son at one point: "The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!" Awesome!

Superman

Now this was the ultimate hero that inspired me as a kid, and has kept me going through my entire life. I was introduced to him through the pages of DC Comics and reruns of the '50s George Reeves series The Adventures of Superman. And then, when I was 18, Christopher Reeve made his debut as the Man of Steel in 1978's Superman: The Movie and there was definitely no going back. Like James Bond, I was with him through every actor that put on the cape, among them Dean Cain, Tom Welling, Brandon Routh, Henry Cavill and Tyler Hoechlin.

In the beginning I was drawn to Superman simply by how cool his powers were and how he could do just about anything he needed to. But as his persona was refined, his meaning became something much deeper. In recent years, the "S" insignia on his chest has been identified as the Kryptonian symbol for hope. The other part of it was driven home to me in an interview (one of many regarding the character I've conducted over the years) with writer Mark Waid, who pointed out to me that with all of his powers, with everything that he could do, Superman chooses to do the right thing. To me, that was pretty profound and it served as a personal clarification of why he means so much to me.

Throughout their lives, my kids, who are all in their twenties now, have oftentimes seen me wearing one variation of the "S" on my shirt or another, and know how important Superman is to me, largely because of what he represents. And in a sense I got to put my money where my "S" is when, some winters ago, my oldest and I were driving somewhere and we saw an elderly man. He was holding on to his walker with one hand, while shoveling snow from the sidewalk with the other. We pulled over and offered to help (despite my son's complaints that we had to get somewhere). Reluctantly the gentleman allowed us to take the shovel from him, and my son and I went to work. As he leaned into his walker, he thanked us profusely. It seems that his neighbor was too sick to shovel, so he was doing it for him.

My son and I finished the job, said our goodbyes, and got back in the car. As I started the engine, I looked at him and I said, "That is why you offer to help people." Getting it, he reached over and tapped the "S" on my shirt. "Exactly," I smiled, and we drove off.