How This Classic Twilight Zone Episode Ironically Failed to Heed Its Own Moral Lesson
Despite its insistence that beauty is only skin deep, The Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder" failed to heed its own advice with regards to the casting of the bandaged—and seemingly hideous—Janet Tyler.
A young woman with an unimaginably grotesque face checks into a hospital for facial corrective treatments.
No, that's not the setup for some off-color joke—it's the premise for one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes ever made: season two's "Eye of the Beholder."
If you had to pick one installment that perfectly encapsulates Rod Serling's classic anthology series, this would be it. Everything—from Serling's original script, to Douglas Heyes's direction, to cinematographer George T. Clemens' shadowy aesthetic—is beautifully aligned in anticipation of the big twist ending and its insistence that beauty is only skin deep.
But the irony goes even deeper than Janet Tyler being revealed as a beautiful woman in a world where distorted hideousness is the metric for normality.
How The Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder" carried a second irony in real life
You see, Janet was actually played by two different people. Maxine Stuart provided the voice we hear from beneath the mummy-like bandages. Donna Douglas takes over once the head wrappings come off.
Why cast two different actresses for the same part?
According to Stuart, it all came down to the makers of the episode failing to heed the story's core lesson.
"It's absolutely right for Hollywood to do a script about conformity and then demand that your leading lady conform to a standard of beauty," she said in Marc Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion. "I do understand that, though. They were saying something. They wanted a really beautiful beauty to point [out] the difference."
Director Douglas Heyes provided an explanation for the dual casting decision in Zicree's book, stating that Stuart's voice "did not suggest a beautiful girl—it suggested a harsh, strong, realistic woman and therefore, the unveiling would be a surprise."
Despite the fact that Stuart never got any face time with the camera, the actress still found an ingenious way to make her presence known beyond her lines of dialogue.
"God, she gave a great performance," Heyes added. "I figured this was only a vocal performance, but she also did great gestures. Her hands were terribly expressive. I later used her in other things, but this was the first time I'd ever worked with her."
Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!
