Ask a classic film fan about Roddy McDowall and they’ll quickly cite How Green Was My Valley or Lassie Come Home, maybe My Friend Flicka. Ask a devotee of screen epics and Cleopatra immediately springs to mind. Disaster film lovers remember The Poseidon Adventure. Horror fans will think of the Fright Night films and perhaps The Legend of Hell House. For science fiction and adventure buffs, though, Roddy McDowall’s work in the Planet of the Apes franchise is the most enduring part of his onscreen legacy—and you don’t even get to see his face.
Over the course of eight years, Roddy became the emotional and intellectual heart of the five films and the live action TV series as Cornelius, an evolved chimpanzee archaeologist. (Though, as any Apes aficionado will point out, Roddy only does the opening voice-over for the second film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, as he was directing Ava Gardner in Tam Lin in London at the time.)
