Sirki’s Summons – January 26: Fezzig, Gen. Aldo & Tangina

Greetings from beyond the veil, friends and fiends.

The names of those summoned by Prince Sirki on this particular day, in the past, are as diverse as can be.

In Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride (1987), he played a gentle giant with a great gift for rhyme (“Anybody got a peanut?”). He played Bigfoot on one of the most popular episodes of The $6 Million Man. Of course he was also one of the most famous professional wrestlers in the world. On this day in 1993, Andre the Giant passed away.

Although perhaps best known (in later years) as the inept title law-man in The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo or for such stirring character roles as fire & brimstone preacher in Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind (1960), Claude Akins also appeared in several episodes of The Twilight Zone and in the final installment of the original Planet of the Apes film series, J. Lee Thompson’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). He played Gen. Aldo, leader of the Army, who also murdered the son of their ruler, Caesar (Roddy McDowall). Akins passed away in 1994.

Though short of stature, this actress was larger than life on the screen. Zelda Rubinstein will forever be remembered for her portrayal of the no-nonsense, though somewhat eccentric, psychic Tangina Barrons in the Poltergeist movies. Ms. Rubinstein passed away on this day in 2010.