Remembering Arlene Martel, Don Pardo, B.K.S. Iyengar
Room For One More,
Honey
TV
SCI-FI ICON, TV ANNOUNCING
LEGEND, AND A YOGA MASTER
Her haunting beauty was perfect for television science fiction and
Arlene Martel starred in three of the most memorable episodes of the 1960’s in three different series. She portrayed the almost bride of
Dr. Spock in
Star Trek, the girlfriend of
Robert Culp in a
Harlan Ellison penned episode of
Outer Limits, and a scary nurse/flight attendant on the
Twilight Zone.
Don Pardo was the familiar voice at
NBS for over 60 years, and was the first
NBC announcer to break in with the report of the
Kennedy assassination.
B.K.S. Iyengar was the world-famous yoga practitioner and teacher who opened up institutes on six continents and is largely responsible for the popularity of yoga in the
United States today.
Dominick
George "Don" Pardo (
February 22,
1918 – August 18, 2014) was an
American radio and television announcer whose career spanned over seven decades.
A member of the
Television Hall of Fame, Pardo was noted for his 70-year tenure with NBC, working as the announcer for early incarnations of such notable shows as
The Price Is Right,
Jackpot,
Jeopardy!,
Three on a Match,
Winning Streak and
NBC Nightly News.[1] His longest, and best-known, announcing gig was for
NBC's Saturday Night Live, a job he held for 39 seasons, from the show's debut in
1975 until his death in 2014
In the early
1950s, he served as announcer for many of
RCA's and
NBC's closed-circuit color television demonstrations.[citation needed]
Martel played the princess
Sarafina on
Have Gun – Will Travel, the evil witch Malvina on
Bewitched, the
French Underground contact
Tiger in five episodes of
Hogan's Heroes, a female cosmonaut on
I Dream of Jeannie, a
Hungarian immigrant
Magda on
The Fugitive episode "The
Blessings of
Liberty" (1966), and, memorably, as the nurse who repeatedly utters the sinister phrase "Room for one more, Honey!" at the entrance to a hospital morgue and as the stewardess at the door of a doomed airplane in the Twilight Zone episode "Twenty-Two". She also appeared in the season-one episode of
The Twilight Zone "
What You Need".
She was billed (as
Arline Sax) as a featured actress in the episode of
Route 66 called "The
Newborn," in which she gives birth. She also made guest appearances on
The Man from
U.N.C.L.E.,
The Untouchables,
Mission: Impossible (season 4, episode 20,
1970), appeared as Asastia in
Here Come the Brides (1970, episode "To
The Victor"),
The Wild Wild West,
Battlestar Galactica, the
1968 movie Angels from Hell, and two appearances on
The Monkees. She played
Interpol agent
Violette in
The Six Million Dollar Man episode "
The Last of the
Fourth of Julys" (season 1, episode 10,
1974). She appeared as a featured actress in the
Gunsmoke episode titled "The
Squaw" (1975).
Pardo made his mark on game shows for NBC as the voice of the original The Price Is Right from
1956 until it moved to
ABC in
1963. Pardo's next show was Jeopardy!, which he announced from 1964 until the original version of the series ended in 1975. This early version was hosted by
Art Fleming. The current syndicated version of Jeopardy has been hosted by
Alex Trebek and since
1984 has been announced by prominent long time announcer,
Johnny Gilbert. Pardo reprised his announcer role with a cameo voice-over in "
Weird Al" Yankovic's 1984 song "
I Lost on Jeopardy" (a parody of
The Greg Kihn Band's
1983 hit song "Jeopardy"). He also announced
New York–based NBC game shows such as Three on a Match, Winning Streak, and Jackpot!, all three of which were
Bob Stewart productions.
Pardo squeezed in many other assignments at NBC, including the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (until
1999),[citation needed]
WNBC-TV's
Live at Five and NBC Nightly News.
Pardo was the on-duty live booth announcer for WNBC-TV in New York and the NBC network on
November 22, 1963, and he was the first to announce to NBC viewers that
President John F. Kennedy had been shot in
Dallas, Texas.[11]
His best known announcing work was for the television series
Saturday Night Live.