"It's a Good Life" for actor Bill Mumy

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There aren't a whole lot of people who can relate to Bill Mumy's childhood. In the 1960s, he was among the busiest child actors in Hollywood. "I was the first American actor to get a kiss from Brigitte Bardot!" he said, thanks to his starring role in 1965's "Dear Brigitte."

It was a career born of roughhousing at the age of six: "So, one day I'm in my Zorro outfit and I'm jumping off of the bed, and I cracked my left leg, like in half," he said. "But, it was my lucky break! So, I was sitting there in a cast watching 'Zorro' and 'Superman,' and I very passionately said to my parents, 'That is what I want to do. I want to be inside the television.'"

He was the son of a California cattle rancher, and a secretary at 20th Century Fox, who kept meticulous track of her son's work. "She kept a record of my gigs," Mumy said, showing us her notes from May of 1961: "Did a 'Twilight Zone' called 'It's a Good Life.' Billy did a wonderful job. $600."

Mumy did three episodes of "The Twilight Zone" on TV, and worked with movie stars like Jimmy Stewart and Lucille Ball, all before he was ten. He learned how to behave from Cloris Leachman, and how not to behave from Alfred Hitchcock (who directed him in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" called "Bang! You're Dead"), who was mean to a fidgety seven-year-old on set. "And this is exactly what he said: 'If you don't stop moving about, I'm going to get a nail, and I'm going to nail your feet to your mark, and the blood will come pouring out like milk,'" said Mumy.

But all of that was prologue, because in 1965, Mumy got famous – "action figure" famous – starring as Will Robinson, the youngest member of a marooned space-age Swiss Family Robinson, for three seasons of "Lost in Space."

At its peak, more than 25 million viewers a week watched the adventures Mumy shared with his sidekick, a robot named B-9.

Sixty years later, asked what it's like to stand next to a B-9 replica built by Hollywood robot builder Fred Barton, Mumy replied, "I think he still looks great. I wish I was in a purple velour and a turtleneck right now going to work with him!"

The robot would warn Mumy of one threat or another, with one of TV's most enduring catch-phrases: "Danger, Will Robinson!" – something random strangers still shout when seeing him. "I accepted it as a blessing," he said. "How many people have something that people want to shout out at them, right? It's cool!"

When "Lost in Space" ended in 1968, of course, Mumy was sad: "And I cried. I actually can remember sitting on the blue couch in our den, and putting my head in my mom's lap and her just kind of petting my head going, 'That's showbiz, honey.'"

And this is where the story gets both really interesting and highly instructive. Mumy avoided the headlines other child stars could not when the bright lights fade.

Mumy said, "There are a lot of child stars who had sad endings, and when that one experience of a long-running television show was over, they weren't treated special anymore, and they had to find out who they were."

But Bill Mumy already knew who he was. Despite being one of the most prolific child actors of the 1960s, what he was connected to more than anything else was music. Acting is something he does. Music is who he is.

"I don't want to diminish my enjoyment of acting," he said. "I know the craft of acting and I'm comfortable whenever I do it. But if I'm not doing it, it's not like I go home and act. It's not like my wife Eileen and I sit around and do plays in the living room. But what I do do is, I play guitar and piano and music all the time."

For the nearly 60 years since "Lost in Space" folded, Mumy has performed with his own bands (including the duo Barnes & Barnes); toured with groups like America; and been an Emmy-nominated songwriter (for "Adventures in Wonderland").

At the age of 72, Mumy still acts and does plenty of voiceover work. But while it's music that fuels him (he just released a new album, "Will Power"), it's still not the most important ingredient in the recipe for staying grounded. "It's my family," he said. "This is the good stuff right here. This is the A-Roll!"

Bill Mumy has captured something that's eluded so many others touched by fame at an early age: an understanding that the only applause that matters is for how he does as husband, father and grandfather. To this Hollywood fixture for more than six-and-a-half decades, those were the only roles worth chasing: "In the big picture, I'd much rather be me and have a wonderful relationship with my wife and my son and my daughter and my grandchildren, than have more gold records and, you know, two divorces and alimony and unhappiness," he said.

"So, you can look back on the whole picture of your life and say, I'm good?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah! I can look back on the whole picture of my life and say, I'm real good!" Mumy laughed.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Bill Mumy (Video)

Extended interview: Bill Mumy 15:19

You can stream Bill Mumy's album "Will Power" by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):

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