Robert 'Bobby' Prohaska was a stuntman and actor who appeared in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), doubling for Roddy McDowall as Caesar in his climactic tree-top fight with Aldo (doubled by Orwin Harvey),[1] and for Bobby Porter (Cornelius).[2] Robert was the son of Hungarian-born Janos Prohaska, who specialized in portraying apes on the screen[3] with numerous appearances on both sci-fi and comedy TV shows throughout the 1960's, and who portrayed at least one ape in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971).
The 1971 Night Gallery episode 'Pickman's Model' (which starred Bradford Dillman and was introduced by Rod Serling - both Apes alumni) earned Apes make-up designer John Chambers an Emmy Award nomination for the design of 'The Ghoul', played by Robert Prohaska.
Janos and Robert Prohaska went on to design the costumes for the David Wolper Productions/ABC-TV four-part documentary series 'Primal Man', about prehistoric man's struggle for survival, with John Chambers and Tom Burman designing the makeup and fellow-Apes makeup artists Ellis Burman Jr., Werner Kepler, Ken Chase, Ed Butterworth and Fred Blau all working on the series. During filming of the final episode, 'The Struggle for Survival', on March 13 1974, some of the cast and crew boarded a chartered plane to return to Los Angeles, but it crashed into a mountain, killing all 36 people on board, including Janos and Robert Prohaska. The 'Primal Man' project was re-named and aired in 1974 as the acclaimed series 'Up from the Ape', including the footage already shot and recovered from the plane wreckage.[4]
External Links[]
- Robert Prohaska profile at the Internet Movie Database
- The “Primal Man” Crash
- TV Guide 'Pickman's Model' article