Mark Goddard (born July 24, 1936, in Lowell, Massachusetts) is an American film actor who has starred in a number of television shows. He is most widely known for his role as Jonathan Harris's long-suffering space partner, Major Don West, in the cult 1960s TV series, Lost in Space.
Goddard was born Charles Goddard in Lowell, Massachusetts, the youngest of five children, and reared in Scituate, Massachusetts.
He led both his high school baseball and basketball teams to the state championship finals. Goddard dreamed of becoming a basketball player but eventually turned to acting. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After two years, he moved to Los Angeles.
In 1959, after just three weeks in Hollywood, he landed a role in the CBS Four Star Television series Johnny Ringo, having played the character of Cully, the deputy. At this time, he changed his name to Mark Goddard at the suggestion of his friend and mentor, Chuck Connors. He was also signed for a role lasting 3 years in the TV show The Detectives, another Four Star-produced hit series which ran on ABC and NBC from 1958-61, and starred movie actor Robert Taylor, along with actors Tige Andrews, Russell Thorson, and Goddard as Detective Chris Ballard. In 1963, Goddard appeared as Roy Mooney in the Perry Mason episode 180, "The Case of the Potted Planter." He was featured in the 1965 film A Rage to Live.
From 1964-1965, Goddard starred in another one-season CBS series, Many Happy Returns, in which he portrayed Bob Randall, the young husband of Joan Randall, played by Elinor Donahue, formerly of Father Knows Best and The Andy Griffith Show. The program starred John McGiver (1913-1975) as the head of the complaint department of a fictitious Los Angeles department store. Elena Verdugo and Mickey Manners were also in the cast.
Goddard's next role was for the three seasons of the CBS television series Lost in Space (1965-68), playing Major Don West. There were two pilots shot for the series. The original 1965 pilot was much different from the pilot that aired and the episodes that followed in the actual series. In the original pilot, Goddard played a doctor instead of a pilot, and was in more scenes than his character ultimately was in the series. By the middle of the second season, the show took on a more comedic tone. The plotlines increasingly centered around the mishaps of Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) and his friends who could always be counted upon to save him and all of the inhabitants of the Jupiter II — the Robot (Bob May) and the brilliant Will Robinson (Billy Mumy), the youngest of the three Robinson children. Castmates included Guy Williams, the former star of Zorro (1957-59), as Professor John Robinson and the credited star of the series; June Lockhart, the former star of Lassie (1959-64), as Dr. Maureen Robinson; Marta Kristen as elder daughter Judy Robinson, and Angela Cartwright (The Sound of Music as well as in all seven seasons of the classic 1957-64 Danny Thomas sitcom Make Room for Daddy), as young daughter Penny Robinson.
Goddard guest starred on series such as The Mod Squad and The Fall Guy. At one point he moonlighted as a Hollywood agent. In 1976, he starred as politician Edward Fleming in the movie Blue Sunshine. In 1978, Goddard starred with Liza Minnelli in The Act (a Broadway musical).
He appeared as Ted Clayton on One Life to Live and Lt. Paul Reed on The Doctors. Later, Goddard starred as 'Derek Barrington' on General Hospital.
He made a cameo appearance in 1998, in the movie Lost in Space, as the general in charge of the Jupiter Mission, and superior officer to his former character, Major Don West.
Mark finished college after thirty years and went on to receive his Masters Degree in education. He is currently a special education teacher at the F.L. Chamberlain School in Middleboro, Massachusetts.
