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Jan Merlin, who played villains in dozens of films and TV shows and good guys on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and The Rough Riders, died Friday in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 94.

In a painful year in England and Ireland in which he served as a "movable prop" and received no screen credit, Merlin donned masks and heavy makeup to portray several characters and substitute for Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra and others in John Huston's The List of Adrian Messenger (1963). He then wrote a 2001 novel, Shooting Montezuma, based on that experience.

He ...

American actor Frankie Thomas died in a Los Angeles hospital last Thursday of respiratory failure. He was 85. Thomas cut his acting teeth on the Broadway, New York City, stage in the 1930s before making the move to Hollywood. He starred in a number of films including A Dog Of Flanders and The Major And The Minor, but he is best known for his lead role in 1950s US TV series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. His co-star Jan Merlin says, "Frankie looked like the all-American boy. Everyone in the room knew immediately this was the guy we were going to get." Thomas turned his back on acting when the show closed in 1955 and pursued a career as a TV, radio and novel writer. He was buried on Tuesday dressed in his space cadet costume.