Here’s Why Guy Williams Got a Raw Deal On ‘Lost in Space’
If you’ve never seen Lost in Space, it was a sci-fi series from the 1960s about a family stranded in space, trying to survive and find their way home. The show had robots, aliens, and lots of crazy adventures, and I’d race home from school in the seventies so I could watch it every single day. Of course, back then, I knew nothing about the behind-the-scenes drama taking place with one of its stars, Guy Williams.
Guy played the dad of the family, John Robinson. Long before Lost in Space, he was already a big deal, famous for playing Zorro. People loved him for it. He had the looks, the talent, and the charm to be the main guy in any TV show. But when he joined Lost in Space, things didn’t go the way he’d expected.
Walt Disney Co./Courtesy: Everett Collection
Bill Mumy, who played Will Robinson on the show, has talked a few times about how he felt bad for Guy because he didn’t have much to do on the show. Even though Guy was a big star with lots of experience, he mostly ended up playing the serious, straight-laced dad while Jonathan Harris, who played Dr. Smith, got all of the wild and crazy moments.
Lost in Space started out as a pretty serious science fiction show, but over time it became sillier and more over-the-top. This shift toward campiness meant that Dr. Smith, along with Will Robinson and the robot, really became the stars. In 2018, Mumy told Journalist Mark Voger that, over time, the trio had become “the Three Stooges of the show.”
That also meant that characters like Guy’s John Robinson and June Lockhart‘s Maureen Robinson were pushed to the sidelines. In that same interview with Mark Voger, June Lockhart said this about her character: “I was supposed to be a biophysicist on Lost in Space. That certainly got lost.”
20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection
Both June and Guy were often left reacting to Dr. Smith’s antics instead of driving the storylines themselves. Here was Guy Williams, a guy who used to be the main hero in Zorro, now playing second fiddle to a character who was really supposed to be a one-time bad guy. Even though Lost in Space became a hit, you have to wonder if Guy felt like he wasn’t getting the chance to shine.
With all that said, Guy did not let it show. He stayed professional and did his job well. He brought a sense of strength and calm to John Robinson, which was important for the show. After Lost in Space ended and his career began to wind down, Guy did something pretty cool: he ended up moving to Argentina, where the people still remembered him fondly for playing Zorro. He was so popular in that country, in fact, that the government even gave him an apartment. It’s pretty amazing to think about how much people loved him over there, even years after he played the swashbuckling masked vigilante.
Everett Collection
Sadly, Guy’s story ended in a way that feels almost as quiet as his time on Lost in Space. After spending many solitary months in Argentina, it was reported that Guy had disappeared. When the police finally searched his apartment, they found his body. An autopsy revealed that he had died a week earlier from a ruptured brain aneurysm. Guy’s official date of death was April 30, 1989. He was just 65 years old at the time of his passing.
Because of his immense popularity in Argentina, his ashes were placed at the Argentine Actor Society Cemetery in La Chacarita Cemetery for two years. Then, in 1991, his ashes were spread over the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, California, according to his wishes. It was a quiet but very fitting end for a man who brought so much joy to fans around the world, even if Hollywood didn’t always give him the spotlight he deserved.
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Puzzler '80s Comedy Classics
Vol 1, Issue 6
This issue is packed with puzzles and trivia from all your favorite '80s sitcoms.
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