Mark Goddard

Mark Goddard, born Charles Harvey Goddard on July 24, 1936, in Lowell, Massachusetts, was an American actor best known for his television work and a Broadway appearance in the late 1970s. He died on October 10, 2023, in Hingham, Massachusetts, from pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 87. The youngest of five children, he grew up in Scituate and was raised Roman Catholic. As a young man he captained both his high school baseball and basketball teams to state championship finals, and while he initially aspired to a career in basketball, he ultimately pursued acting. He began his studies at the College of the Holy Cross before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and after two years there relocated to Los Angeles.

Within three weeks of arriving in Hollywood in 1959, Goddard secured a role on the CBS Four Star Television series Johnny Ringo, playing Cully, the deputy to Don Durant's title character. It was during this period that he adopted the professional name Mark Goddard, a change made at the suggestion of his friend and mentor Chuck Connors of The Rifleman. He went on to appear in multiple television westerns of the era, including The Rebel, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, and Gunsmoke, as well as a 1962 episode of The Rifleman itself. Another Four Star Television production, The Detectives — which aired on both ABC and NBC from 1958 to 1961 — gave Goddard a sustained role as Detective Sgt. Chris Ballard alongside Robert Taylor, a part he held for 64 episodes across three years. He also appeared in episodes of Perry Mason, The Virginian, and the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.

Goddard's most prominent television role came when he was cast as Major Don West in the CBS science fiction series Lost in Space, which ran from 1965 to 1968. In subsequent years he guest-starred on The Fugitive, The Mod Squad, and The Fall Guy, and for a period worked as a Hollywood agent. His film credits include the 1976 political thriller Blue Sunshine, in which he starred as Edward Fleming, and the 1979 disco film Roller Boogie, featuring Linda Blair and Jim Bray. He also appeared in a 1970 episode of Adam-12, a 1974 episode of Barnaby Jones, and a first-season episode of Quincy M.E. In 1998, he made a cameo in the theatrical reboot of Lost in Space, appearing as the general overseeing the Jupiter Mission and superior officer to his original character.

Goddard's Broadway career brought him to New York in 1977, when he appeared in The Act, the musical starring Liza Minnelli. His daytime television work included the role of Ted Clayton on One Life to Live in 1981, Lt. Paul Reed on The Doctors in 1982, and Derek Barrington on General Hospital from 1984 to 1986.

Outside of performing, Goddard completed his undergraduate education three decades after first enrolling and earned a master's degree in education from Bridgewater State College. He met his third wife, English professor Evelyn Pezzulich, while studying there, and they married in 1990. From 1991 through at least 2009, he taught at the F.L. Chamberlain School in Middleboro, Massachusetts, where he led an acting class as a special education teacher. In 2009, he published an autobiographical memoir titled To Space and Back: A Memoir. Goddard was married three times: first to Marcia Rogers from 1960 to 1968, then to actress Susan Anspach from 1970 to 1978, and finally to Pezzulich beginning in 1990. He had a total of five children across his three marriages.