With the Daily Zone coming to a close yesterday after I completed the viewing of all 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone, I have started to compile some lists. Kicking off the posts are, in my opinion, the Top 20 performances from The Twilight Zone 1959-1964. There are three actors who appear in the top 20 twice.

#20. Neville Brand/George Takei (The Encounter). I put these two together because they were so important playing off the other that they were truly an acting team. And this episode falls apart with out these two elevating the material.

#19. Buster Keaton (Once Upon a Time). The special episode of The Twilight Zone honored Buster Keaton and his history in the films. The silent section highlighted Keaton’s slapstick mastery and was one of the few Twilight Zone episodes that were actually funny.

#18. Donald Pleasence (The Changing of the Guard). Donald Pleasence was a teacher at the end of his career, looking for a reason to make himself relevant. The potentially suicidal man is truly brought to life by Pleasence.

#17. Jack Klugman (A Game of Pool). Jack Klugman brought a lot of pathos to this role of a pool player determined to be known as the greatest ever, and the game that would make that so.

#16. Theodore Bikel (Four O’Clock). Bikel played the villain of the piece, Oliver Crangle, and he played him with a flair and with a ton of gusto. In what could have been just a mustache twirling villain, Bikel found the perfect balance in this man.

#15. Russ Martin (Death Ship). Give a shout out to Jack Klugman here too as the captain, but Russ Martin is the character providing all the conflict among this group of three men who crashed on an abandoned planet only to find another crashed ship with three bodies that looked just like them.

#14. Anne Francis (After Hours). Anne Francis does a great job as a confused customer of a department store that can not seem to find her way back to the floor she had purchased her gift from. One of the cool twists of the series and Francis does a great job of showing it.

#13. Earl Holliman (Where is Everyone?). Holliman’s performance really made the debut episode of The Twilight Zone something special as he showed a steep decline mentally when he had no one around to interact with. If Holliman did not do so great, would the show had been such a success?

#12. Fritz Weaver (The Obsolete Man). The Chancellor learns a painful lesson thanks to Burgess Meredith in this sci-fi future tale. A 1984/Big Brother type of story with the Chancellor having the tables turned on him. Weaver showed all the emotions and the fear at the end was palpable.

#11. Cliff Robertson (Caesar and Me). Cliff Robertson had some excellent performances in the show, but this one really stands out for me. Watching this man gradually lose himself to this ‘talking’ ventriloquist dummy was very powerful.

#10. Billy Mumy (It’s a Good Life). Young Billy Mumy had several good performances, including Long Distance Call and In Praise of Pip, but he is iconic in this role as the all-powerful Anthony, who ruled the town with a mental power that could send you to the ‘cornfield.’ The coldness of expression was quite advanced for a young boy.

#9. Gladys Cooper (Night Call). Receiving a surprising call in the middle of the night leads to a lot of terror for invalid Elva Keene. She went from terror early to hopefulness when she realized that perhaps she would not have to be alone. This was a very layered performance from a talented actor whom we will see later on this list.

#8. James Whitmore (On Thursday We Leave for Home). Captain Benteen has been the leader of his people for years, and when the rescue ship arrived from earth, Captain Benteen struggled with the idea of not being the God he had been. Whitmore gives this man, who could be considered a cult leader, humanity and you understood why he would become lost.

#7. Burgess Meredith (The Obsolete Man). Burgess Meredith might be considered the MVP of The Twilight Zone and his portrayal of the librarian Romney Wordsworth who was to be put to death because of his obsoleteness. Yet Romney gets the last word on the subject. Burgess Meredith is perfect in this role.

#6. Robert Duvall (Miniature). Another character dealing with mental illness, Charley Parkes found himself much more at ease talking to and interacting with a doll house miniature at a museum, believing that it was alive and carrying on life in the doll house.

#5. Jack Klugman (In Praise of Pip). Here is the first of the three actors to appear twice on this list, and Klugman could have been here a couple of other times as well. His Max Phillips is in such pain when he mistakenly finds out that his son, Pip, had been killed in the Vietnam War. As he is dying himself from a gunshot wound, Klugman spends a day at the amusement park with the spirit of Pip in a truly heartbreaking performance.

#4. Burgess Meredith (Time Enough at Last). One of the best episodes of the series, poor Henry Bemis only wants to be able to read his books and newspapers, but everyone is preventing him from doing it. So when Henry survives the destruction of the city only to break his glasses, irony is truly hard to swallow. Meredith is the second double performance on this list, and he could have easily been here for Printer’s Devil too.

#3. Agnes Morehead (The Invaders). One of the singularly top performances of the series, Agnes Morehead does not have dialogue and she still dominates the screen as she battles the arrival of aliens from another planet (although there is a twist to that).

#2. William Shatner (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet). This was almost #1 as Shatner was brilliant as the man who saw a gremlin on the airplane wing and slowly slipped into madness trying to convince others on the plane that there is danger afoot. Shatner could have easily let this performance slide into an overblown performance (see John Lithgow in Twilight Zone: The Movie), but everything was perfect. Shatner could have made this list too as Don Carter in Nick of Time.

#1. Gladys Cooper (Nothing in the Dark). Wanda Dunn had been hiding from Mr. Death. She had secured herself in a hideaway and avoided human contact. When a policeman was shot outside her place, she had to come out and help him, opening herself up to the final fate that awaits us all. She was so amazing, bringing fear, denial and acceptance to this broken woman. She starred in this with Robert Redford as Mr. Death. She is, of course, the third actor to have double duty on this list.