False Face - Malachi Throne
False Face, The Master of Disguise. He could change his face to match anyone and drove a trick truck that also changed its look at the flip of a switch.
False
Face was played by the actor Malachi Throne. He was a favorite actor
in TV in the 60's and 70's appearing in many shows during that time,
they included, Hogans Heroes, The Outer Limits, Lost In Space,The
Wild Wild West, Hawaii 5-O, Twilight Zone and many others . There was
a bit of controversy about this Batman episode, In the show the
villain was wearing a mask so no one could tell who the star villain
was. The producers decided that if it was a mystery who the villain
was, it could help the ratings so they put a ? where the actors name was.
Malachi
was promised top billing as the star villain and this caused a few problems.
Malachi on
his role : "
Originally False-Face was to be done with make up, but due to
production problems or decisions a plastic mask was used instead. It
was a good character , but the problem was that the mask came out
rather ugly and uncomical when 
photographed.
The mask was bad, and it prevented the character from repeating
because there was no response to the character. Although I felt my
work was good , it would have been better had they stuck to the
original concept- different facial disguises. Also the concept of
False Face not being headlined was my idea. The question mark in the
credits was the producers choice, but during a contractual argument I
insisted that my name be withdrawn from the credits since there was
going to be no face on it and no real acting. I was irate enough to
say, " Anyone could have played that part behind that kind of
mask, so please withdraw my name from the credits. In the meantime a
huge amount of publicity arose from that with regard to what had
leaked out - not with regard to me but with regard to whether Frank
Sinatra was playing the part , or Sammy Davis was playing the part,
or Cary Grant , because everything was so celebrity conscious during
the early days of Batman . So everybody in town was having a good
time guessing who was playing False Face. Director Billy Graham cast
me in it even though I was not on the same name level as some of the
other people. That was like a coup, but they pulled the rug out from
under me with that stupid mask."
This was the only appearance of Malachi as
False-Face on Batman. He went on to appear in Star
Trek, Babalon 5
, Rockford Files, and many
other T.V. appearances. He had a very distinctive voice and did a
great deal of voice work. While never a huge star, he had a huge list
of credits .
Currently he is fine and doing theater work in
California !
Heres a current photo of him from the TV Show, Law and Order in 1997
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Batman. False Face, You'll regret this ...........eventually. 