10 The Twilight Zone Episodes Featuring Stars Before They Were Famous

Carol Burnett, Robert Redford, and Dennis Hopper in The Twilight ZoneRod Serling’s The Twilight Zone was like other spooky anthology series in that it gave up and coming actors particularly interesting roles to play. Plenty of big names put in single-episode appearances before their names became so big. For instance, one of the leads of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two of the most integral presences on the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series, and Rocky’s trainer in, well, Rocky.

The Twilight Zone, wasn’t their first project, but it was one of their first projects, a stepping stone en route to whichever big or small-screen project that ended up being their springboard.Were all of the following episodes high points for the series? Not quite, but some of them are, and even when they’re not top-tier episodes, the future A-listers at the center elevated them.William Shatner in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”Undoubtedly one of the most influential The Twilight Zone episodes, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” features William Shatner as a man recently released from a mental health clinic who just can’t stand to be on a plane.



It’s a triggering environment...

especially when there’s a furry Gremlin man on the wing.“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” actually wasn’t Shatner’s first time on The Twilight Zone, as three years prior he co-lead “Nick of Time.” However, even with that three-year gap, this iconic Season 5 episode still featured Shatner another three years shy of his big break as Captain James T.

Kirk on Star Trek: The Original Series. Carol Burnett in “Cavender is Coming”“Cavender is Coming” follows a guardian angel as he’s assigned to Carol Burnett’s Agnes Grep, an accident-prone woman who can’t seem to hold a job. The angel’s goal is to improve her life, but she’s not going to make it easy on him.

Burnett was already something of an established presence in the comedy world when this 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone hit the air, having already had a major role on The Garry Moore Show. But it was after this her star began to rise further and faster. The following year she hosted the TV special An Evening with Carol Burnett and in 1966 appeared for the first time (of four) on The Lucy Show.

But it was in 1967 when she created and starred in The Carol Burnett Show, the iconic sketch comedy show which ran for over a decade.Dennis Hopper in “He’s Alive”“He’s Alive” is one of The Twilight Zone‘s riskier episodes. Even today it holds a certain deeply unfortunate poignance.

After all, it focuses on an American neo-Nazi (Dennis Hopper) who is visited by the ghost of Hitler.When Hopper starred in this stirring 1963 episode, he had already put appearances in TV shows such as Sugarfoot, The Rifleman, and The Defenders as well as the James Dean-fronted movies Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. He was established, but not quite a leading man star.

That wouldn’t happen for another six years when he wrote, directed, and co-lead Easy Rider.Burgess Meredith in “Time Enough at Last” (& Three Other Episodes)Featuring one of The Twilight Zone‘s more jarring conclusions, “Time Enough at Last” shows a man who cares very little about people and loves only to read. When a bomb goes off, obliterating all life around him, he feels he now has all the time in the world to consume literature.

But, to do so, he’s going to need the lenses in his glasses to stay intact. Along with The Odd Couple‘s Jack Klugman, Meredith was The Twilight Zone‘s most consistent presence outside Serling and Robert McCord (who was an extra in 67 episodes). He starred in four episodes: this iconic Season 1 episodes, Season 2’s “Mr.

Dingle, the Strong” and “The Obsolete Man,” and Season 4’s “Printer’s Devil.” “Time Enough at Last” and “The Obsolete Man” are widely deemed two of the show’s better episodes, and a big part of their success is Meredith, who was still quite a few years shy from his major role as The Penguin in Batman. And, if going by his 1959 debut on The Twilight Zone, he was 17 years away from his most iconic big-screen role as Mickey Goldmill in Rocky.

Robert Duvall in “Miniature”In “Miniature,” Robert Duvall plays Charley Parkes, a man who visits a museum and finds himself entranced by a dollhouse. Why? According to him, flesh-and-blood people are living within that dollhouse.Duvall was pretty new to the scene when he starred in “Miniature.

” On the small screen, he had been in four episodes of Naked City and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well as a small role as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. There would be a few more years after this 1963 episode before he started to break through, with more small-screen appearances on shows such as The Outer Limits and Combat! before he got a decent chunk of screentime in movies like Bullitt (1968), True Grit (1969), and M*A*S*H. His first lead role in a motion picture? THX 1138, directed by none other than George Lucas.

Cloris Leachman in “It’s a Good Life”Still a fairly frightening episode of The Twilight Zone to this day, “It’s a Good Life” shows a town where the adults bow to the will of a child. That child is six-year-old Anthony Fremont, and even his mother (Cloris Leachman) is terrified of him. After all, he does possess supernatural powers and a raging temper.

Like many others on this list, Cloris Leachman had established herself as a presence on the small screen prior to appearing in her The Twilight Zone episode (released 1961). She had even enjoyed a 28-episode run on Lassie from 1957 to 1958. But it wasn’t until she played Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show that Leachman really broke through.

And, one year after joining that show, she nabbed the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Peter Bogdanovich’s phenomenal The Last Picture Show.[RELATED: 7 Horror Movies That Don’t Exist Without The Twilight Zone]George Takei in “The Encounter”“The Encounter” isn’t the only episode to just focus on two characters seen here on this list, but it’s almost certainly the best. One of the two is Fenton, an American WWII veteran, and the other is Arthur (George Takei), a Japanese-American gardener.

They’re both locked up in Fenton’s attic, along with a sword that seems to hold a curse. By episode’s end, racial tensions boil over and blood is spilled by both parties.Like with Shatner, Takei was a few years shy of his role as Sulu on Star Trek: The Original Series when he starred in “The Encounter.

” This episode couldn’t have been his breakthrough, though, as CBS considered it too intense to show again after its initial airing. And, while we’re on the topic of fun facts, Takei had worked in major projects prior to The Twilight Zone, as he had provided his vocal talent to the dubbed versions of Godzilla Raids Again (1955) and Rodan (1956).Elizabeth Montgomery & Charles Bronson in “Two”“Two” shows the world after an apocalypse, with barren cities and hardly any remaining souls.

Elizabeth Montgomery stars as a soldier who wanders into a barren town and comes across a man (Charles Bronson) wearing the uniform of the enemy’s army. Will they go for each other’s throats or extend mutual helping hands?Montgomery got her start on her father’s show, Robert Montgomery Presents and put in bit appearances on shows like The Third Man and Alfred Hitchcock Presents before this 1961 Twilight Zone, so she was an established presence in the entertainment business. But it wasn’t until three years later when she’d become an icon as Samantha Stephens on Bewitched.

As for Bronson, before this episode he too had popped up in Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well as an episode of Gunsmoke. After this he led The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters on the small screen and was in an episode of The Fugitive, but other than that stayed away from television. After all, in 1967 (not long after Jaimie McPheeters wrapped) he had a major role in The Dirty Dozen, with Once Upon a Time in the West Coming the following year, and what ended up being his most famous role as Dr.

Paul Kersey in Death Wish in 1974.Robert Redford in “Nothing in the Dark”The underrated “Nothing in the Dark” follows just two characters. Wanda Dunn is an elderly woman who has managed to avoid the grim specter of death more times than she can count and, in doing so, has ultimately led a lonely life.

Now there’s a young man (Robert Redford) outside her door, wounded and begging for help. She finally lets him in, but may learn that Death himself has a new trick up his sleeve.“Nothing in the Dark” was one of Redford’s final roles on the small screen (with only one-episode appearances in The Untouchables, The Virginian, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour the following year).

And, yet, he was still a few years away from truly breaking through in major motion pictures. He had a primary role in Sydney Pollack’s This Property Is Condemned in 1966 and co-lead Barefoot in the Park in 1967, but it wasn’t until 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that he was launched onto the A-list. Peter Falk in “The Mirror”“The Mirror” follows the overthrowing of a Central American dictatorship.

At the center of that coup is Peter Falk’s Ramos Clemente, who is warned by the newly deposed leader that he’s in for much the same, as the mirror that comes with the office has a way of revealing who your enemies are.From 1957 to 1961 (the air date of his The Twilight Zone episode), Falk worked consistently on television. In fact, he had worked in films, as well, two of which (Murder, Inc.

and Pocketful of Miracles) netted him Academy Award nominations. But one would be hard pressed to call anything other than his work as the title character in Columbo his most iconic role (he played it on and off for over 30 years). And, when this episode aired, he was still seven years shy of his debut as the shrewd investigator.

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