Mal Throne

Malachi Throne, who performed on Broadway under the name Mal Throne, was an American actor born on December 1, 1928, in New York City, to Samuel and Rebecca Throne, immigrants of Austro-Hungarian and Russian Jewish descent who had come to America before World War II. Raised in the Bronx, Throne made his first stage appearance at age ten in 1939, playing Huckleberry Finn in a New York Parks Department production of Tom Sawyer. He later attended Brooklyn College and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

Throne's Broadway career spanned from 1955 to 1963 and included appearances in the revue The Girls Against the Boys, Threepenny Opera, Lorenzo, and Reginald Lawrence's The Legend of Lizzie. Beyond Broadway, he remained active in theater throughout his life, becoming a member of the Theater West company in Hollywood and earning critical recognition for performances with the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles.

Television became the primary arena of Throne's professional life. He co-starred with Robert Wagner in It Takes a Thief, playing Noah Bain, and was a frequent presence in the productions of TV producer Irwin Allen, appearing in multiple roles across Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, and Lost in Space. He guest-starred on numerous series including The Defenders, Naked City, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mannix, Hogan's Heroes, Combat!, Ben Casey, The Wild Wild West, Mr. Novak, Laredo, The High Chaparral, Mission: Impossible, Babylon 5, and Perry Mason, among others.

His connection to the Star Trek franchise was particularly extensive. Throne provided the voice of the Keeper in the original unaired pilot episode "The Cage" in 1964, footage from which was later incorporated into the two-part episode "The Menagerie" in 1966. Because Throne had been cast in "The Menagerie" as Commodore José I. Méndez, the Keeper's voice was electronically altered in pitch to distinguish the two performances. He later appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation as the Romulan senator Pardek in the two-part episode "Unification," and in 2004 he appeared in the second episode of the fan production New Voyages, titled "In Harm's Way."

On the ABC series Batman, Throne portrayed the villain False-Face, a character who employed disguises and wore a semitransparent mask that made his face unrecognizable on screen. The show's producers, against Throne's wishes, listed the onscreen credit as "? as False Face," leaving him uncredited, though his full name did appear at the end credits of the episode "Holy Rat Race." He later contributed voice work to Batman animation, playing the Judge on The New Batman Adventures in 1998 and Fingers in Batman Beyond in 2000.

Throne's film work included roles in The Young Lovers (1964), Beau Geste (1966), Code Name: Heraclitus (1967), Assault on the Wayne (1971), The Greatest (1977), Stunts (1977), Primary Motive (1992), and a small part in Catch Me if You Can (2002). Outside of acting, he served as a national television spokesman for Ziebart during the 1970s and narrated the 1976 theatrical trailer for Star Wars. In 1980 he provided voice-over narration for a vinyl record soundtrack version of The Empire Strikes Back, and in 1999 he narrated the Powerman 5000 album Tonight the Stars Revolt.

Throne was married to Judith Merians from 1965 to 1992; the two had two sons, Zachary, born in 1967, and Josh, born in 1969. He subsequently married Marjorie Bernstein in 1992, a union that lasted until his death. Throne died of lung cancer on March 13, 2013, at his home in Brentwood, California, at the age of 84.