Vic Perrin

During the 1940s and 1950s, Perrin was a regular performer on many commercial radio programs. In 1941 he became a staff announcer for NBC, staying there for several years before moving to ABC and becoming chief announcer at the Blue Network.[8][1] His first credited role came in 1943, when he served as the announcer for "The Last Will and Testament Of Tom Smith", a radio episode of Free World Theatre, which was produced and directed by Arch Oboler.[9] He narrated too "A Star With Two Names", part of the segment "Behind The Scenes Hollywood Story" of The Hollywood Music Hall radio program. At the same time, he joined Charles Laughton's theatrical repertory group.

Perrin was also a regular guest star on the radio version of Gunsmoke, and he wrote or co-wrote five scripts for that popular Western series between 1959 and 1961.[10][11] Perrin was a series regular as well on the anthology radio drama Family Theatre, played Ross Farnsworth on One Man's Family, and was featured as cavalry trooper Sergeant Gorse in Fort Laramie in 1956. He performed too as several characters in Escape, Pete Kelly's Blues, Dragnet, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, and Have Gun – Will Travel.[9] In an uncredited role, he also impersonated Clyde Beatty on The Clyde Beatty Show.[9]

One of Perrin's first television roles is in "The Golden Vulture", a 1953 episode of the Adventures of Superman.[12] In that episode he portrays a hapless sailor onboard a freighter run by a self-styled pirate. He also appears in 16 installments of Dragnet and plays characters in a variety of other series, including Peter Gunn, Black Saddle, Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Mackenzie's Raiders, The Untouchables, Going My Way, Perry Mason, Adam-12, Mannix, and Mission: Impossible.[12]

Perrin voiced multiple characters on the animated television series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Those characters include, Pietro, The Puppet Master, Karl the Stuntman, Ape Man, The Snow Ghost, Mr. Leech, Dr. Najib among others. He also provided the voice of Dr. Zin, the main antagonist in Jonny Quest, as well as the voice for the villain The Gimmick in the Blue Falcon. In performances in front of the camera, Perrin portrays a voyeuristic serial killer in the 1966 made-for-TV movie Dragnet, which served as a pilot episode for the color version of the television series, which premiered in 1967. He guest-stars too on "The Guardians", a 1981 episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and he appears in two The Twilight Zone episodes: "People Are Alike All Over" and "Ring-a-Ding Girl".[12]

He has voice and character roles in three classic 1967 Star Trek episodes. In the series' first-season episode "Arena," he is the voice of the Metrons, an alien species. He appears as well in the second-season episode "Mirror, Mirror", portraying the head of the ruling council on Halka, a planet of pacifists. Also in the second season, in the episode "The Changeling", he is the voice of Nomad, a space probe. Perrin is the voice of yet another villain, Sinestro, who is the nemesis of the Green Lantern, in the Super Friends series.[12]

For many years Perrin narrated dozens of science and educational short films for educational filmmaking pioneer Sy Wexler and continued to do voice-overs and to play character roles until a short time before his death.[7]

Perrin was active in off-camera work in television commercials, prompting one newspaper article to include the comment "Vic Perrin is one actor who makes more money when he's not seen on camera than when he is."[13]