In Science Fiction, outside of the ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Alien’ franchises, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ probably has more books written about it than any other film. Having reviewed Dan Richter’s book ‘Moonwatcher’s Memoir: A Diary Of 2001: A Space Odyssey’ a couple of years back and still looking around for anything I’d missed, I came across this one, ‘2001 Memories: An Actor’s Odyssey’ by Gary Lockwood, released in 2001. An anniversary connection. It looks like it was transcribed by R.A. Jones. Quite who I should blame for the odd spelling mistake is on the centrifuge, but they were easy to spot.
Fellow actor Keir Dullea gives the introduction and notes that he and Lockwood are far apart in many respects but got on fine during filming and when they met many years later at their first convention together. Before you ask, I did check, and Dullea hasn’t written a book. Considering he was probably the cast member there longest, that’s a shame. Lockwood was only there for 10 months.
What we have here is Lockwood going over his career, interspersed with his meeting Stanley Kubrick in New York before coming to the UK for a year of filming. He held Kubrick in high regard and would have taken any film role he offered him. It just so happened to be ‘2001’.
Reading about his schooldays, it’s clear that, as well as being rash and reckless by his own admission, Lockwood was precocious and asked a lot of questions. That I do recognise as something akin to me, only I didn’t curb my curiosity.
Lockwood admits to not collecting anything, although he does own up to having a ‘2001’ poster. Judging by his recall of events and people, I suspect he collects memories, even if he couldn’t remember Richter’s name. Then again, it looks like he never met him, and meeting people is likely how he remembers them. Looking over his early life, he certainly collected a lot of skills and read a lot of books.
Something that doesn’t come out in the other books is how much he and Dullea contributed to the script and how much Kubrick was prepared to let them go away overnight and come up with something better, as witnessed by the pod scene, although neither actor came up with how HAL would know they were planning to disconnect him. Lockwood thinks it was Victor Lyndon. Looking him up, he was Kubrick’s associate producer on the film. As I said, Lockwood remembers who he’s met, and he passes on details about a long list of them, including that Presley chap.
For the ‘Star Trek’ folk amongst you, he does include a lot of detail about his time on the second pilot episode, even if he didn’t follow the series at the time. There’s more than enough to read here about his life without me going into spoiler territory.
His take on life is interesting as an analysis of an American who had gambled, even taken drugs, and survived, mostly because he didn’t get addicted. He was 63 when he wrote this book and is now 89 and still going, which shows his own longevity.
I’m not a regular reader of autobiographies, but this is readable and made me want to track down a couple of his westerns to see him playing the heavy. The fact that he acted in one of the most significant Science Fiction films ever made and in the second pilot for the original ‘Star Trek’ puts him in a unique position. This book takes a bit of finding but does turn up from time to time at a reasonable price if you want to seek a copy out.
GF Willmetts
September 2026
(pub: Cowboy Press, 2001. 208-page illustrated medium softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-9307094-0)
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