Michael Forest, Actor in Roger Corman Movies and ‘Star
Trek,’ Dies at 97
He starred in ‘Beast From Haunted Cave,’ ‘Ski Troop
Attack’ and ‘Atlas’ for the B-movie maven but also did lots of Shakespeare on
the stage and films overseas.
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes
October 16, 2026
Michael Forest, the strapping actor who starred in Beast
From Haunted Cave and other B-pictures for Roger Corman and made memorable
guest-star appearances on classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van
Dyke Show and Star Trek, has died. He was 97.
Forest was living in a facility for seniors in Sparks,
Nevada, and died Wednesday, his friend James A. Brown announced.
A native of North Dakota, Forest also made more than 20
movies in Spain, France and England — among them 100 Rifles (1969), starring
Jim Brown and Raquel Welch — and was a very busy voice actor who was fluent in
Italian, dubbing more than 500 films while living in Rome from 1968-78.
Six-foot-3 and 215 pounds in his prime, Forest had
recently moved to Los Angeles when he met Corman in an acting class and was
hired to play the whip-cracking barbarian Zarko in The Saga of the Viking Women
and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), starring
Richard Devon, Abby Dalton and Jonathan Haze.
That led him to snowy Deadwood, South Dakota, and a turn
as local guide Gil Jackson in the horror heist movie Beast From Haunted Cave
(1959), produced by Roger’s brother, Gene Corman, and featuring Chris Robinson
as the monster. (Monte Hellman, who lived in the same apartment building as
Forest at the time, made his feature directing debut on the film.)
One day after finishing work on Beast From Haunted Cave,
Forest was back at it, starring as an American soldier in the Roger
Corman-directed war flick Ski Troop Attack (1960). And after that, he quickly
headed to Athens to portray the title hero in Atlas (1960), with Corman seeking
to horn in on the popular Hercules pictures that starred Steve Reeves.
Forest played one of the three motorcycle-riding brothers
from another planet (Lee Kinsolving and Tom Gilleran were the others) sent to
wipe out humans on Earth on the Twilight Zone episode “Black Leather Jackets,”
which starred Shelley Fabares and premiered on Jan. 22, 1964.
Nine days later, he was on CBS again on The Dick Van Dyke
Show as a former love interest of Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) who’s now a priest —
getting set up with Rose Marie’s Sally Rogers was great for a few laughs — on
the episode “The Life and Love of Joe Coogan.”
And on the second-season Star Trek episode “Who Mourns
for Adonais?” that first aired in September 1967, Forest portrayed the Greek
god Apollo who demands that the crew of the Starship Enterprise worship him as
he falls for Lt. Carolyn Palamas (fellow guest star Leslie Parrish).
In 2013, he returned as Apollo on the fan-produced series
Star Trek Continues to work alongside his late wife, Diana Hale, as Athena.
Gerald Michael Charlebois was born on April 17, 1929, in
Harvey, North Dakota. He moved with his family as a youngster to Seattle and
said he decided to pursue acting — instead of boxing — after seeing a friend
perform at the Seattle Rep Playhouse.
After he attended the University of Washington and San
Jose State, he moved to L.A. in 1955, appeared on an episode of Highway Patrol
and started acting for the Players Ring theater company in West Hollywood. He
first met Roger Corman in an acting class that both were taking with noted
teacher Jeff Corey.
“One day he said to me, ‘Look, Mike, do you want to do
this picture [Viking Women]?’” Forest recalled in an interview for Tom Weaver’s
2001 book, I Was a Monster Movie Maker. “‘It’d be nothing more than kind of a
glorified stuntman, but if you want to do it, fine.’ I said, ‘Sure.’”
He spent five weeks in South Dakota on Beast From Haunted
Cave and Ski Troop Attack and told Weaver he was paid $2,500. “I got $500 a
week,” he said. “I think at that time, minimum weekly was $350 and I got $500 —
I held out for big bucks!”
Also in 1960, he recurred as the French Canadian rogue
Pierre Duran alongside Roger Moore on the Warner Bros./ABC adventure series The
Alaskans.
He wound up under contract at Warners — and later
Universal — and worked on everything from Zorro, Bat Masterson, Maverick,
Bonanza, Have Gun — Will Travel, Lawman, The Rifleman, Death Valley Days and
Wagon Train to Dr. Kildare, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Outer Limits, Perry Mason,
The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Gunsmoke, Combat!, Gilligan’s Island and Get Smart
through the end of the 1960s.
Meanwhile, Forest was doing lots of Shakespeare, playing
Othello three times and appearing as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew at
the Old Globe in San Diego. (He landed his Star Trek gig after someone at the
theater recommended him.)
Back from Europe, he lived in New York while playing Nick
Andropoulos, owner of the Greek restaurant The Plakka, on the CBS soap As the
World Turns from 1980-82.
Later, Forest portrayed the wealthy older millionaire who
has a fatal heart attack after an intense sadomasochistic encounter with
Madonna’s Rebecca Carlson in Body of Evidence (1993) and was a pilot in the Tom
Hanks-starring Cast Away (2000).
He and Hale were married for 52 years until her death in
2022.
“I look back, and it certainly hasn’t been what you might
call a distinguished career, but on the other hand, it hasn’t been bad,” he
once said. “Some of the things that I’ve done, I take a great deal of pride in.
But, like all actors, you do work in material and situations that are not what
you want, and you try to make it the best you can. Acting has its ups and its
downs.”
FOREST, Michael (Gerald Michael
Charlebois)
Born: 4/17/1929, Harvey, North Dakota, U.S.A.
Died: 10/14/2026, Sparks, Nevada U.S.A.
Michael Forest’s westerns – actor:
Death Valley Days (TV) 1953-1959 (Coyote Jim, Larry)
Cheyenne (TV) – 1956-1961 (Capt. Robert Holman, Lariat
Sanga, Leader)
Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend – 1957 (Slade)
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (TV) -1957-1958 (Big Bear,
Brave, Broken Claw)
Tombstone Territory (TV) - 1957 (Floyd Rank)
Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (TV) - 1958 (Strong Eagle)
Have Gun - Will Travel (TV) - 1958 (Peter Keystone)
Zorro (TV) – 1958 (Anastacio)
Bat Masterson (TV) – 1959-1960 (Les Wilkins, Noah Gannon)
Bonanza (TV) – 1959-1967 (Frank Shirmer, Wabuska, Young
Wolf)
Bronco (TV) - 1959 (Jacques Perrault)
Lawman (TV) - 1959 (Chief Little Wolf)
Maverick (TV) – 1959-1961 (Bob Tallhorse, Jean Paul St.
Cloud)
The Rifleman (TV) - 1959 (Chaqua)
The Texan (TV) - 1959 (Deputy Lacy)
26 Men (TV) - 1959 (Jodine Hardie, The Champ)
Yancy Derringer (TV) - 1959 (Pierre)
Zane Grey Theater (TV) – 1959 (Joe Sampson)
The Alaskans (TV) - 1960 (Pierre Duran, Shaman)
Valley of the Redwoods – 1960 (Dave Harris)
The Westerner (TV) - 1960 (Troy)
The Tall Man (TV) - 1961 (Ledall)
Wagon Train (TV) – 1961-1962 (Dallas, Julio)
Frontier Circus (TV) - 1962 (Roy Clatter)
Laramie (TV) – 1962-1963 (Cobey, Dev Bardeen, Lew Catlin)
Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) - 1962 (Duke Tolliver)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1963-1965 (Bob Sullins, Chance, Ray Pate)
The Virginian (TV) – 1964-1966 (Cavalry Lieutenant,
George MacGregor, Hugh Stager)
The Glory Guys -1965 (Fred Cushman)
Rawhide (TV) - 1965 (Yuma)
Branded (TV) - 1966 (Newt Woolery)
Little Rita of the West – 1967 [English voice of Kirk
Morris]
Daniel Boone (TV) – 1967 (Long Feather, Canuda)
Mosby's Marauders – 1967 (General J.E.B. Stuart)
Laredo (TV) - 1967 (Miguel)
The Wrath of God – 1968 (Pitt)
Here Come the Brides (TV) - 1969 (Gallagher, Mike
Donegan)
100 Rifles – 1969 (Humara)
The Silent Gun – 1969 (Trace Evans)
Compañeros – 1970 [additional English voices]
The Last Rebel – 1970 (pool hustler) [as Mike Forest]
Requiem for a Bounty Hunter – 1971 (Ryan/John Burton/Nick
Barton)
The Grand Duel – 1972 [additional English voices]
Massacre at Fort Holman – 1972 [English voice of James
Coburn]
Now They Call Him Sacramento – 1972 (Sacramento/Amen)
Cotter – 1973 (Tony Amaral)
Border Shootout – 1990 (Earl Beaudry)
The Scarlet Worm – 2011 (Judge Hanchett)
