Martin Balsam

 While starring on an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", Alfred Hitchcock was so impressed by Martin Balsam's work that he offered him a key supporting role of Detective Milton Arbogast in "Psycho" (1960).

According to Hitchcock, a series of shots with Arbogast going up the stairs in the Bates house before he is stabbed were done by assistant director Hilton A. Green, working with storyboard artist Saul Bass' drawings only while Hitchcock was incapacitated with the common cold. However, upon viewing the dailies of the shots, Hitchcock was forced to scrap them. He claimed they were "no good" because they did not portray "an innocent person but a sinister man who was going up those stairs". Hitchcock later re-shot the scene, though a little of the cut footage made its way into the film. Filming the murder of Arbogast proved problematic owing to the overhead camera angle necessary to hide the film's twist. A camera track constructed on pulleys alongside the stairway together with a chairlike device had to be constructed and thoroughly tested over a period of weeks.

The shot of Arbogast falling backward down the stairs was a process shot of Balsam sitting stationary and waving his arms, as if losing his balance, in front of a screen projecting a previously filmed dolly shot moving down the stairs.

Balsam also performed the original voice of the HAL 9000 computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey". After his lines were recorded, director Stanley Kubrick decided "Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American," and hired Douglas Rain to perform the role for the released film.

Happy Birthday, Martin Balsam!