Celebrity Nooz: Gary Lockwood

Gary Lockwood (Actor) - 2001: A Space Odyssey

Updated: 9/13/21

Name: Gary Lockwood

Birth Name: John Gary Yurosek

Born: February 21, 1937 in Van Nuys, California, USA

Nickname: Lox

Claim To Fame: Gary Lockwood is an American actor who's best known for his role as astronaut Frank Poole in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Family Life: Lockwood was married to actress Stefanie Powers from 1966 until their divorce in 1972. In 1982, Lockwood married actress and businesswoman Denise DuBarry. The couple had one child, actress Samantha Lockwood, before divorcing in 1988. Lockwood was also married to Hope Harrsen, but details are not clear.

Info: Lockwood is of partial Polish descent.

Lockwood's uncle, Mike Yurosek, is credited with creating the baby-cut carrots.

Lockwood attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on a football scholarship.

Got his name from legendary director Joshua Logan, whose middle name is Lockwood, because no one could pronounce Gary's real last name: Yurosek.

Father of daughter Samantha Lockwood with Denise DuBarry.

Trivia: Broke into the entertainment field as a stunt man and stand-in for actor Anthony Perkins.

Lockwood's film debut was in, Wild in the Country (1961), with Elvis Presley.

In 1963-64, Lockwood starred as a young U.S. Marine second lieutenant named William T. Rice in the NBC series The Lieutenant. This drama, about the peacetime Marines, was produced by the creators of Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Norman Felton).

Lockwood co-starred with Stefanie Powers (then his wife) in an episode of ABC's Love, American Style, as a newlywed who gets his mouth stuck around a doorknob.

While appearing in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)'s second pilot episode, Star Trek: The Original Series: Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966), he was required to wear heavy silver contact lenses for his character. Lockwood had difficulty wearing the lenses as they were heavy, thick, and only had one tiny hole for him to see through. He claimed, afterward, that the lenses were to blame for his later vision problems.

Best remembered today as astronaut Frank Poole in the Stanley Kubrick futuristic epic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Lockwood first worked for Kubrick in an uncredited bit part in Spartacus (1960).

Where Are They Now: Most recently, Lockwood appeared in the sci-fi comedy Unbelievable!!!!! (2020) which features several former Star Trek cast members from many of its television series made over the years. Lockwood has had quite a career from westerns to sci-fi epics. It would be great to see him again on the screen!

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