Charlton Heston
The part of Taylor called for an actor capable of effortlessly projecting the heroic qualities of a Ben-Hur with the messianic narcissism of a Moses; Charlton Heston clearly was the ideal choice. Taylor is one of the strangest antiheroes of 1960s movies: he is only an antihero because the actor playing him chose to project his almost epically tragic failings in the guise of a genuine jerk absolutely can much stand to be around. Heston won his one and only Oscar for Best Actor for Ben-Hur; he should have won it for Taylor. It is a profoundly quirky performance that challenges the then-contemporary work of such “Method Actor” rising stars as Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman.
Roddy McDowall
Oddly enough, the “face” of the Planet of the Apes franchise came to be Roddy McDowall rather than Charlton Heston. McDowall appeared in four of the original five movies as well as starring in the TV series and hosting a documentary about the franchise. McDowall also played an instrumental part in making the already groundbreaking ape makeup come further to life: it was he who suggested to his fellow simians that the addition of facial tics and other gestures of the head would enliven the realism of the makeup as well as help detract from its mask-like potential.
Kim Hunter
Planet of the Apes became the first science fiction movie to star two Oscar-winning actors, immediately lending it a higher level of expectation and seriousness than the genre warranted at the time. Prior to the groundbreaking year of 1968, sci-fi movies for the most part suffered from miniscule budget and either unknown actors on the way up or has-been former stars on the way down. Had the producers’ original choice for Zira come through, the glitter attached to the film would have shone even more brightly: two-time (at the time) Oscar winner and Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman. After the film came out better than she had expected, Bergman admitted she made a mistake in turning it down. Kim Hunter would reprise her role as Zira in the first two sequels to the film.
Maurice Evans
The classically trained British actor Maurice Evans also served to establish Planet of the Apes as an evolutionary leap forward for the science fiction genre. He was not the first actor to take on the orangutan makeup for Zaius, however. Test screenings undertaken more than half a year before shooting began features another Hollywood legend playing Zaius to Heston’s Taylor: Edward G. Robinson By the time the film got greenlighted, however, Robinson had come to feel his health was suffering far too greatly too withstand the physical exertion. A few years later, Robinson would finally team with Heston for another iconic SF movie: Soylent Green.
Linda Harrison
Linda Harrison was primarily cast as the mute Nova for two reasons: she was pretty enough for audiences to buy Charlton Heston being okay with her being picked out by the chimps as Taylor’s mate. And, even more importantly, at the time she was having an affair with producer Richard Zanuck. She actually got pregnant by Zanuck during shooting and the two would later marry.
