Television
Scott Marlowe appeared in over 100 credited acting roles during his career of 44 years on American television. He was frequently billed a guest star, and appeared on many popular drama, action, sci-fi and fantasy TV shows, including: Route 66, The Wild Wild West, The Time Tunnel, Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Barnaby Jones, Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, M.D., Wonder Woman, The Rockford Files, Fame, Beauty and the Beast, thirtysomething and Matlock.
In 1951 he was first cast in the Pulitzer Prize Playhouse episode "Hostage". This was the start of several roles he would take in various anthology series on television, primarily in 50’s and early 60’s, and occasionally thereafter into the 80's. In 1955, he appeared on Star Tonight which showcased young actors in adapted contemporary literary works. The next year in the episode "In Summer Promise" on General Electric Theater, he starred with Joan Fontaine as a young man who charms an older woman into love who doesn’t know he is to marry his childhood sweetheart. On Zane Grey Theatre, he starred with Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the 1961 episode "The Long Shadow". He would go on to star in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, Thriller, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Police Story and Freddy's Nightmares.
As his recognition from feature film roles grew, his television career took off and Marlowe began starring in Westerns. He excelled in playing the hotheaded, mean-spirited or misguided youth with little regard for custom or law. He would star in 18 episodes on Western themed shows from 1958 to 1966, making a significant contribution to the genre as he solidified his position into a prominent television actor.
In 1958, he played the son of the title character (played by James Whitmore) in the Wagon Train episode "The Gabe Carswell Story". In 1960, he starred opposite Clint Walker playing a white man raised by Apaches, married to a once-captive Mexican woman (Lisa Montell) reintegrating into his home town in the Cheyenne episode "Apache Blood". Also in 1960, he played a young man masquerading as Billy the Kid in "The Show Off" on Law of the Plainsman. In 1962, he guest-starred on Stoney Burke in "Point of Honor" as a troubled, would-be bull rider. The following year, he starred in "Legends Don't Sleep" as an aimless youth who venerates a newly released older ex-con (William Talman) who was once an infamous outlaw, in one of his four appearances on Gunsmoke. Marlowe had three notably sympathetic roles in Have Gun – Will Travel: as an innocent man about to be hanged in "The Hanging of Roy Carter" (1958), as an earnest and seemingly naive Native American appointed sheriff in "Charley Red Dog" (1959) and as an Austrian prince deceived by his advisor (Eduard Franz) in "Duke of Texas" (1961). In 1964, he was a special guest star playing an outlaw whose gang robs the Cartwrights with the sham help of Will Cartwright (Guy Madison) in "The Roper" on Bonanza.
After the release of Lonnie in 1963, his theatrical film work became limited, and he increasingly turned to television roles. During the mid-1960s, he moved away from his earlier "bad-boy" screen image and began appearing in a wider range of television dramas, including legal, police, medical and mystery series. He was often cast in antagonist or "heavy" roles, which helped establish him as a recurring guest actor on primetime television. Over the following decades, he continued to appear in television productions, with credits extending into the 1990s.
In these dramas he was typically cast as the antagonist (usually a criminal or other unsavory character), such as: a developmentally disabled skiing murderer on Route 66 in the 1961 episode "Effigy in Snow"; on Kraft Suspense Theater in 1964 as a convicted-then-commuted murderer who kidnaps and intends to kill the judge (Ronald Reagan) who sent him to the gas chamber in "A Cruel and Unusual Night"; in 1972 as a songwriter wrongfully suing a singer (Peggy Lee) for plagiarism on Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law in "Smiles from Yesterday" (featuring a young Mark Hamill); a counterfeiter in 1974 on Mannix in "The Green Man" and, on T.J. Hooker as the disgraced ex-partner of Hooker (William Shatner) who kidnaps his daughter in "The Ransom” (1985).
Marlowe appeared twice in the original The Outer Limits. As the starring lead in the 1963 episode "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork", he played a worried brother searching for a missing-then-dead scientist played by Michael Forest, with BarBara Luna as his girlfriend and Ed Asner as the investigating police detective. In the 1964 episode "The Forms of Things Unknown" he co-starred with Vera Miles, David McCallum, and Cedric Hardwicke playing a smarmy, blackmailing playboy who won’t stay dead. Much of the footage for this latter episode served as the basis of a reworked plot (using additionally filmed scenes and a different ending) of a pilot created for an unsold horror anthology series called The Unknown.
Between 1966 and 1973 he appeared ten times on The F.B.I. taking on nine different characters in the episodes: "The Price of Death" (1966) as a murderous kidnapper teamed with his brother (Robert Blake), whose comatose victim may die without insulin; "Overload" (1967) as a newly-released ex-con with a feline companion, intend on killing the woman (Diana Hyland) he assaulted, while eluding the FBI during a power blackout; "The Tunnel" (1968); "The Young Warriors" (1969); "Blood Tie" (1969); "The Fatal Connection" (1971); "The Mastermind: Parts 1 & 2" (1971); "The Rap Taker" (1973); and "The Exchange" (1973).
Beginning in the 1970’s Marlowe played in several made-for-television films starting with the Ted Post-directed sci-fi horror Night Slaves (1970), followed by Travis Logan, D.A. (1971), The Critical List (1978), Thou Shalt Not Kill (1982), the Lee Grant-directed drama No Place Like Home (1989), Seasons of the Heart (1994, starring Carol Burnett), and Following Her Heart (1994, starring Ann-Margret).
Later in his career he had recurring roles on four broadcast TV series: the early-cancelled Andy Griffith police drama Adams of Eagle Lake (1975); the short-lived nighttime soap Executive Suite (1976); and, on the daytime soaps Another World (1979) and Days of Our Lives (1984). He took a turn at comedy in 1990 as a guest star with a two-episode character arc playing a gangster kingpin in the sitcom Perfect Strangers. In 1991, Marlowe starred as the Bajoran refugee leader in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ensign Ro". In the 1994 syndicated series Valley of the Dolls he played the character "Michael Burke" in the principal cast, which ran for 65 episodes. Marlowe’s last known television appearance was in the 1995 episode "School for Murder" on Murder, She Wrote.
