The moonwatchers that (almost) were

By February 1965 the "Dawn of Man" section of 2001 was still in its early stages of pre-production, and the final look of the ape-men (or men-apes) was still not agreed upon - this happened only in 1967. On February 17 Stanley Kubrick approached actor Robert Shaw and asked him if he was interested playing the Moonwatcher character; Shaw was fresh from its international breakthrough with the wildly successful second installation of the James Bond franchise, 007 - From Russia with love (1963), where he had played a russian spy.

Here's an extract of the letter that the director wrote to Shaw:

I am enclosing a sketch of an Australopithecine man-ape from Raymond Dart’s “Adventures with the missing link”, without wishing to seem unappreciative of your rugged and handsome countenance, I must observe there appears to be an incredible resemblance.

Robert Shaw in a publicity still for From Russia with love, 1963

I got hold of a copy of the book mentioned by Kubrick and there is only one "sketch" that fits the description:

Australopithecine sketch from R.Dart's "Adventures with the missing link", The Viking Press, 1959; p.232

This apparently puzzling piece of alternative casting could be understood considering that, by then, the role of Moonwatcher was still conceived as a "cameo": indeed, an annex to the contract signed by MGM for 2001 in early 1965 mentioned not only Shaw but also Toshiro Mifune, Albert Finney, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Richard Kiley, Jose Ferrer and even Gary Lockwood (who ultimately played Frank Poole) as tentative Moonwatchers. All these actors shared (with obvious differences) the same degree of physical strength and atlethicism that an early version of an ape-men was, supposedly, in need of.

left to right, top to bottom: Toshiro Mifune, Richard Kiley, Albert Finney, José Ferrer, 

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gary Lockwood

It is unclear if Kubrick actually wanted one of these actors to really play an apeman, or was, more likely, trying to appease MGM's hunger for star names to 'enhance' the status of a sci-fi flick and set it apart from the b-movie reputation that the genre movies enjoyed at that time; on this regard, for example, in 1964 Kubrick was in talks with Paul Newman for the role of the lead astronaut. Besides that, Kubrick obviously admired Shaw as an full-fledged actor beyond his appearance, as he considered him also for his aborted Napoleon movie, that he intended to shoot after 2001.

"Six degrees of separation" trivia: the screenplay of the first Kubrick movie Fear and Desire was written by Howard Sackler, who would later write an early draft of Jaws (1975): it was him who came up with the idea of the “Indianapolis” speech that was unforgettably delivered on screen by Robert Shaw himself, who (he was also a novelist and playwright) reworked and cut down the dialogue that had previously been expanded by John Milius.

Robert Shaw delivers his famous “Indianapolis” speech in Jaws

Anyway, as we all know, Moonwatcher was eventually played by Dan Richter, who brought along his talent as mime in order to, essentially, create the character from scratch, therefore departing significantly from the "rugged appearance" concept. (I spoke with Dan for my article How did they shoot the leopard scenes?).

Apeman costume test for Dan Richter (source)

Before Richter, even scottish comedian Ronnie Corbett was considered to play the role, apparently because he had played a Gibraltar barbary macaque in war film Operation Snatch, as he recalled speaking on the Graham Norton TV show.

Ronnie Corbett - © Getty Images / Tony Evans

"The theory [behind Operation Snatch] was if there was a sudden drop in the population of barbary apes, the UK would lose control of Gibraltar. So they had soldiers playing barbary apes to make it look like there were loads of apes.” [...] “Kubrick really did ask to see me. He saw me in the Gibraltar (film)." Corbett laughed (source).

The comedian then went through weeks of tests with the 2001 make-up department, headed by Stuart Freeborn, for costume and make-up. "It was a horrible experience," [...] "They put two straws up my nostrils so that I could breathe and then they covered my whole face, including my eyes, with warm plastic." When he was given a pad to communicate with the plastic on his face, he wrote on it: 'Get it off!' [...] After this frightening ordeal I never did get the part in the end, but I can't remember why not, or what happened next. (source)

"This isn't 'Cleopatra', why are we paying this guy so much money?" Ivor Powell shares his memories of '2001' and beyond

We learned in a previous post that Alien and Blade Runner producer Ivor Powell appeared in 2001 as one of the hibernated astronauts aboard Discovery I. Last week I've been able to make contact with Mr. Powell thanks to Peter Briggs, co-writer of Hellboy and director of Panzer 88, an interesting upcoming movie produced by Powell and Gary Kurz (Star Wars & The Empire Strikes Back).

Ivor Powell (this and the following photo curtesy of the amazing documentary series Alien Makers)

Mr. Powell very kindly agreed to share with us some memories of his experience on our favourite movie as 'extra' and publicity assistant. Enjoy!

* * *

Dear Simone, 

I can confirm that the story is true: I worked on 2001 for nearly three years and although uncredited, apart from Ray Lovejoy (deceased Editor of the movie) I was one of the longest crew employees on the movie. I started off working as a publicity assistant, assigned to working within the Art Department - helping obtain tie-ins with all kinds of companies and then ended up working directly for SK as a kind of junior special effects production co-ordinator. My job was basically to know exactly what was happening on all the various SP-FX camera setups that were sometimes shooting 24/7. 

 

One day, I was asked to stand in for the actor that played Kaminsky inside the Hibernaculum. They needed someone that could keep their eyes closed without their eyelids 'flickering'. Not easy under 'close scrutiny' - but I ended up in the movie as far as I know.

I could not believe my good fortune when I learned that i had got the job to work on 2001. I was a huge fan of Kubrick's after seeing Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita and Spartacus and as I was also Science fiction mad - it was like a dream come true.

Kubrick was a scary, super intellectual person to come across initially. 2001 was my first big movie experience (albeit at a very junior level) and I was in awe of him.

As a junior publicity assistant, I was paid pretty generously for my limited experience and I learned subsequently that Kubrick was questioning my immediate boss Roger Caras about my salary. There are copies of this correspondence in the Kubrick archives. There's a telex that SK wrote to Roger that said something like - "This isn't Cleopatra, so why are we paying this guy Ivor so much money"?

 

Ivor Powell (source: imdb.com)

To cut a long story short - one day, unaware that my fate was in the balance and of all these telexes that were flying back and forth between M.G.M. Studios, Boreham Wood and New York, where Caras was based - I was walking across the lot and happened to bump into Kubrick and for the first time plucked up the courage to talk to him.

Fortunately for me, he was impressed by whatever i said and he instructed Victor Lyndon, his associate producer to renegotiate my salary down by 50% and reassign me to work next to his (Kubrick's) office, where I began to chart the progress of all the effect shots of the movie. Remember that this was way before CGI and Digital effects. Special effects were much more complicated in those days and had to go through multiple stages before all the elements were finally composited together in the film lab. I shared this office with Con Pederson and Bryan Loftus.

* * *

Another couple of interesting 2001/Kubrick-related facts about Ivor:

1) It's possible, although not 100% sure, that it was him, drawing from his experience in 2001, that suggested Ridley Scott to use a front-light technique in order to achieve that eye-glowing effect for the replicant's eyes in Blade Runner.

You might remember that same effect in 2001, where the effect was unintended, as we have seen in my previous article about the leopard scene:

Here's a snippet from the Blade Runner classic making-of book Future Noir:

Although I can't be sure of this today, it might have been a prior experience of mine which prompted me to suggest we use this 'reflected light' technique in the first place. Because when I was working on 2001, we were using a lot of what's called front projection. How that works is, you hang a highly reflective screen behind your sets and actors and front-project a background onto that screen. You can't notice this in the film because you've also lit the set in such a way to disguise that front light.

Well, one day when we were doing this on 2001, we brought a live leopard onto the set for the 'Dawn of Man' sequences. And a totally unanticipated thing happened. As a result of throwing all this light forward, the leopard's retinas reflected that light straight back into the camera. And it's eyes looked like they were glowing - it was the motion picture equivalent of what you see when someone takes a bad snapshot of you and the light from the flash bounces back from your eyes onto the emulsion. So the glowing eyes of 2001's leopard hadn't been planned at all. But Stanley (Kubrick) liked the effect so much he kept it in the final cut. This is so similar to what we did on Blade Runner, it is feasible I suggested this idea to Ridley or Jordan early on. Unfortunately, I just can't remember.

2) Blade Runner producer Michael Deeley credited Ivor Powell for the famous borrowed shots from The Shining that ended up being used for the original Blade Runner ending:

Here's an excerpt from Deeley's book Blade Runners, Deer Hunters & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off:

Then Ivor Powell had a canny idea and he suggested to us that we call Stanley Kubrick to ask if Ridley could borrow a short piece of film from The Shining (1980). This rare courtesy from one director to another provided us with the footage that depicted Deckard and Rachael driving through an extraordinary landscape toward their happy future together.  

One day of shooting in northern California with Harrison Ford and Sean Young (Rachael) provided sufficient close shots to splice into Kubrick's footage. Terry Rawlings, back in the cutting rooms, came up with an ingenious way of reformatting the yellow Volkswagen which appeared in The Shining so that it looked like some completely futuristic vehicle. 

The Shining had been paid for by Warner Brothers, who gave Stanley Kubrick an unprecedented amount of financial and creative freedom. No money passed between Brighton Films and Warner Brothers for this material, which was achieved by a mere wave of Kubrick's hand.

Powell was also instrumental in bringing Douglas Trumbull, one of the special effects supervisors for 2001, on board for Blade Runner; and did more or less the same for 2001 modelist Roger Dicken in Alien (Dicken physically built the facehugger and the chestburster from H.G. Giger's original designs).

Not bad for an hibernated astronaut, don't you think?

A full cast list for '2001', Part 5: "The Discovery Channel"

Welcome to Part 5 of our extended look at all the actors that starred in '2001'. As the title suggest, today we'll focus on the actors appeared in the scenes in which Bowman and Poole watch T.V. footage on portable or fixed screens aboard Discovery.

Kenneth Kendall (Mr.Holland, 'The World Tonight' announcer)

The host of The World Tonight, the BBC-12 TV show Bowman and Poole watch while eating (the character name is reported in the continuity reports as Mr.Holland) was played by Kenneth Kendall, a real BBC newsreader.

Kendall began as a radio announcer in 1948 before moving to TV in 1954, and made history on September 4, 1955, by becoming the first BBC newsreader to appear on TV. He left BBC in 1981 and became well known again for hosting Channel 4's Treasure Hunt. 

His role in 2001 (obviously a 'cameo' role for the british audience, who surely must have found odd that a presenter who debuted on national TV in 1955 would look almost unchanged in 2001!) was not his only sci-fi appearance in those years: he played a TV presenter also in a couple of Doctor Who episodes in 1966 and in the movie They Came From Beyond Space (1967).

A nice interview with the late Kendall, who passed away in 2012, can be read here (no 2001-related content, though it is stated that he was "enormously proud" of having appeared in it).

Mike Lovell (Martin Amer, BBC reporter)

 

Ah, Martin Amer, one of my favourite obsessions. He is the reporter of BBC-12's The World Tonight  and the name of the actor who portraits him never appeared in the 'official cast lists'. Nothing is known about him, no interviews, no details - nothing! Considering that he utters a not insignificant number of words, in a movie famous to be very short of it, it always seemed odd.

The 'official cast lists' reported that the name of the actor was the same Martin Amer, though the obvious cameo nature of the role made this look suspicious - according to IMDB and Bfi.co.uk, 'Martin Amer' he only played that role in his entire carrier. He sounded and looked like a professional actor, to me.

At last, in my January visit to the Kubrick Archive I was able to read the continuity sheets regarding those scenes. Along with the names of Kendall, Poole and Bowman, right besides the transcription of the lines spoken by Amer (by the way, this is the correct spelling, not Amor!), it appears the name of the actor: Mike Lovell.

Now, this seems legit, as a Mike Lovell DID appear in the 'official cast lists', but he was referred to as an 'astronaut'. This is a double confirmation and I'm locking this name, as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, Mike Lovell's appearance in 2001 seems to be his only foray in the world of movie-making, so we're somehow back where to square one; well, at least we know his real name.

Franklin W. Miller (Mission Control)

Agel's book The Making of Kubrick's 2001 is the only source of information about the actor who played Mission Controller, Franklin W. Miller:

Kubrick tested dozens of military ground-control landing officers, hiring — over strenuous British Actors Equity objection — Chief Warrant Officer Franklin W. Miller, U.S. Air Force traffic controller stationed in England. Actors did not sound like the familiar mission control voice.

Miller remembers working with Kubrick: "He saw that every little detail of personal comfort was at my disposal. I had aspirins if I had a headache, and even lotion when lights offered too much glare. Nothing seemed to be too much trouble. He always put me at my ease. Without realizing it, I once was tapping my foot — a nervous habit — which no one could see beneath the console where I was sitting, but it produced quite a thump on the tape. Instead of asking me to stop tapping, Kubrick got me a blanket, put it under my feet, and I tapped all I wanted to." 

Miller was transferred to Bangkok after his "perfectly marvelous experience."

... I really don't think IMDB got it right with their claim that a forty-something officer could suddenly turn into an award winning musical actor! (Well, as long as someone comes up with pictures of the musical, that's my official position on the issue).

Alan Gifford and Ann Gillis (Poole's parents)

Alan Gifford, who played the unnamed father of Frank Poole, was an american character actor born in 1911 in Taunton, Massachusetts. Despite having been a long-time resident in Britain, he never lost is american accent, featuring in many roles where since his movie debut in 1950 he mostly played military men and other various officials. He passed away in Scotland in 1989.

Ann Gillis, who played Poole's mother, was born in 1927, in Little Rock, Arkansas. A child and teen star in the Thirties & Forties, she was Bambi's wife and mother's voice in the Disney classic. Gillis  retired very early from cinema, in 1947, and then moved to London, where she did some TV appearances.

Mrs. Gillis gave a significant interview to Rusty White in the very year 2001. In this rather amusing snippet we learn how she got the role in 2001 and how she got along with Kubrick (hint: not very well).

RW: You came out of retirement after 20 years and did a bit part in "2001: A Space Odyssey." How did that come about and what was it like to work for Kubrick?" 

AG: There was a casting call for American actress in London. I was living there with my husband at the time, so I said why not. 

RW: You played one of the astronauts parents during the interstellar phone call scene, correct? 

AG: Yes. Well, Kubrick was a real jerk. It shows you what can happen when a director is given a blank check. He hired two sets of "parents." I was the back up actress. The part wasn't scripted, so he told the two actors to go write their part over lunch and come back. They did. The actress playing the part read the lines she wrote. Kubrick fired her and said "I like the 'other one' better. 

RW: The 'other one' being you? 

AG: The 'other one' being me. That's how I was referred to. Well, we took the lines and started rehearsing and then filming. It was difficult because we were sitting side by side and saying lines to which no one was responding. Also, my conversation and the other actor's conversation were not related. We were saying all these disjointed lines and Kubrick keeps changing them. Then the other actor joins in by saying he had an idea for some dialogue. Kubrick lets him run with it. I was thinking, "Keep your ideas to yourself." We did 21 takes. Kubrick prints them all. In the old days a director never printed every take. Kubrick prints all 21 takes for this one little scene which lasts just a few seconds. He was set to keep going and I said, "You've got enough, I quit." I left. 21 takes, ridiculous.

Bonus: William Sylvester

Let's go back to William Sylvester and focus to the pre-recorded message played right after Hal’s death (where the name of Floyd is spelled “Haywood” instead of Heywood). This, and William Sylvester’s slightly different hair style, is a sign of re-shoot that took place later in the summer (July 4): all the Sylvester scenes aboard the shuttles, the space station and the Moon had been already completed by January.

Now that Hal was dismissed, the audience (and Bowman) needed to know, at last, was the true purpose of the mission was, in order to set up the final part of the movie. In early script versions this was meant to be revealed by other characters from Mission Control in a more elaborate message played to Bowman in the centrifuge after Hal's demise. The scene remains, in a similar form, in Arthur C. Clarke's novel; here Floyd is joined by a Dr. Simonson (a character that had to feature in the movie as well but was later cancelled) that explains to Bowman the reasons behind Hal's murderous behavior: Hal was 'created innocent', and had a reaction very similar to a human 'nervous breakdown' because of the lie he lived in, having to conceal the true purpose of Discovery's mission to Jupiter.

Kubrick decided otherwise, possibly to speed up the pace of the movie, and maybe also in order to not waste the emotional pathos of the confrontation between Hal and Bowman. This shorter version, in fact, surely contributed to the relative obscurity of the plot in the final edit.

A full cast list for '2001', Part 4 - The Discovery Crew

Welcome to Part 4 of our extended look at all the actors that starred in '2001'.

Today we'll focus on the crew of the spaceship Discovery I, on its way to Jupiter to investigate the strange signal emitted by the monolith on the Moon - though, as you may remember, not all members of the crew were aware of the true purpose of the mission...

Keir Dullea (Dr. David Bowman)

This underrated actor will always be remembered as Kubrick's Mona Lisa for his puzzled stare as Dr. David Bowman, commander of the Discovery I, faces his destiny 'beyond the infinite'.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1936, Dullea was launched into Hollywood stardom by his intense performance as the trubled adolescent in David and Lisa (1962), though it was Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is missing (1965) that put him on Kubrick's radar.

2001 didn't turn Keir into an international star, but his talent granted him a long and successful career, expecially on stage, in New York City and in regional theaters. He had a major role in the 1974 cult classic Black Christmas, and he reprised his role of Dave Bowman for Peter Hyams' 2001 decent sequel, 2010 (1984).

In the last 48 years Keir has given countless interviews about his role in 2001; for many others photos and infos about his long career in movies, TV and on stage, please visit keirdullea.org and keirdullea.tumblr.com, excellent resources mantained by truly dedicated fans (you can find them on Facebook's Keir Dullea Appreciation society).

Gary Lockwood (Dr. Frank Poole)

Born in Van Nuys, California in 1937, Gary Lockwood is a 'lock' (no pun intended) for the Sci-fi Hall Of Fame, as shortly before starting shooting his 2001 scenes he also starred in Star Trek's second 'pilot' "Where no man has gone before" (1965).

Outspoken, athletic (he played football at the University of California), charismatic, Lockwood began his career as stand-in for Anthony Perkins and as an extra on Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). Between 1959 and 2004, he had roles in some forty theatrical and made-for-TV features and made almost eighty TV guest appearance, often as the 'tough guy'.

Lockwood was a 'natural' actor - he claimed he never took an acting lesson in his life - and his role in Star Trek's pilot, more than his performance in 2001, gives us a glance of what he was capable of.

Again, Gary gave many interviews about 2001, and he also self-produced a book about his career and his most famous role.

Douglas Rain (HAL 9000)

A well trained canadian Shakespearian actor who spent most of his career on the stage, Douglas Rain was intended to be the 'narrator' for 2001, as the movie was originally conceived as a spectacular, epic documentary about space exploration. After many trial and tribulations, he turned out to 'play' the most famous fictional computer ever, HAL 9000, the third member of the Discovery I crew.

Jerome Agel's book The Making of Kubrick's 2001 (a book edited and revised by the same Stanley Kubrick), reports that

[...] Rain was asked to record HAL when the narration was struck and Kubrick decided that the original voice of HAL — Martin Balsam — was too emotional, making the visuals redundant. Kubrick was looking for an unctuous, patronizing, neuter quality -"and Rain was great." [...]

Rain: "I wrapped up my work in nine and one-half hours. Kubrick is a charming man. Most courteous to work with. He was a bit secretive about the film. I never saw the finished script and I never saw a foot of the shooting."

Kubrick: "Maybe next time I'll show Rain in the flesh, but it would be a nonspeaking part, which would perfectly complete the circle."

By the way, Balsam was convinced he had given a tremendous performance as Hal: in the August 5, 1966 issue of the Anderson Daily Bulletin, he says:

"I'm not actually seen in the picture at any time, but I sure create a lot of excitement projecting my voice through that machine. And I'm getting an Academy Award winner price for doing it too." [ed.note: Balsam had already won an Oscar for best supporting actor for "A Thousand Clowns"].

A recent, excellent book by Kate McQuiston, We'll meet again - Musical design in the films of Stanley Kubrick, give us an interesting insight into Kubrick's decision process in choosing HAL's voice, drawing from documents in the Kubrick Archive:

Would-be HAL included Alistaire Cooke and Martin Balsam, who read for the part but was deemed too emotional. Kubrick set assistant Benn Reyes to the task of finding the right actor, and expressly not a narrator, to supply the voice. He wrote, "I would describe the quality as being sincere, intelligent, disarming, the intelligent friend next door, the Wiston Hibler / Walt Disney approach [Wiston Hibler, a prolific producer for Disney, was best known for narrating Disney films] The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic, or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting. Enough said, see what you can do". 

Even Kubrick's lawyer, Louis Blau, was among those making suggestions, which included Richard Basehart, Jose Ferrer, Van Heflin, Walter Pigeon, and Jason Robards. In Douglas Rain, who had experience both as an actor and a narrator, Kubrick found what he was looking for: "I have found a narrator ... I think he's perfect, he's got just the right amount of the Winston Hibler, the intelligent friend next door quality, with a great deal of sincerity, and yet, I think, an arresting quality."

As Rain's and Balsam's performances were only recorded in post-production, someone was needed to read HAL's lines while shooting. Kubrick himself and his assistant director Derek Cracknell did it - prompting Keir Dullea to recall in several interviews how Cracknell's cockney accent sounded improbable for a futuristic computer first activated in Indiana: "Better take a stress pill, Dave" came out like "Better tyke a stress pill, Dyve", à-la Michael Caine.

Shooting the Monolith excavation scene: second from left, standing, Derek Cracknell is the guy with the hands on his hips.

Kubrick solved the problem by using english actor Nigel Davenport, who was actually on-set between February and March, 1966 with Dullea and Lockwood. Most definitely, he was not intended to be the definitive HAL: Kubrick reportedly thought he sounded too 'english', and according to a 1966 interview with the director by Jeremy Bernstein, Kubrick had already made up his mind:

[...] Later, Kubrick told me he had engaged an English actor to read the computer's lines in the serious dramatic scene, in order to give Dullea and Lockwood something more professional to play against, and that in the finished film he would dub in an American-accented voice.

Martin Balsam and Nigel Davenport

Another first-hand witness recently supplied a new, curious perspective : Stefanie Powers, Gary Lockwoods' girlfriend and future wife, revealed in his 2010 biography "One from the Hart" that she also had played HAL in the early rehearsals:

I suppose I was technically the first voice of HAL, although my tenure was brief and only during rehearsals. I was immediately replaced by Nigel Davenport, with his mellifluous, deep baritone voice. He lasted a bit longer than me, before being replaced by the androgynous voice Stanley had wanted all along but had needed to compare before committing.

Stefanie Powers and Gary Lockwood in Love, American Style (1969)

As we already know, in the early scripts the computer aboard Discovery had to have a female voice and had to be called Athena; Powers' presence at the rehearsals makes us wonder if Kubrick was still considering a female personality for the computer, even in early 1966 and very close to the actual shooting.

Anyway: Powers -> (Davenport) -> Balsam -> (Kubrick,  Cracknell) -> Rain.

Finally, Douglas Rain. In a rare interview given in 1981 to the Toronto-based newspaper Globe and Mail, the canadian actor recounted how he got the role:

[...] Kubrick, in preparation for the film, came across a National Film Board documentary called Universe. 

"It was," says Rain, "a very low-budget affair with ping pong balls, and the sun, as I recall, was played by a tomato - actually, it came off as very impressive on the screen." 

In any case, Rain did the narration for Universe; Kubrick - who, according to Rain saw the movie 95 times - got used to the sound of Rain's voice. Kubrick managed to find Rain and hire him to do the narration for 2001. In the making, however, Kubrick decided that a narration was unnecessary, and asked Rain to do Hal the Computer. 

"It took a day and a half to record," says Rain. "It is not that I haven't wanted to do movies," he says, "it's just that I've never been approached. People seem to think that when you do classical things you can't do anything else. Well, that's just rubbish, of course. "Mind you," he adds, with mock-fastidiousness, "when you look at the quality of what's around, maybe it's a blessing in disguise."

Douglas Rain (right) with fellow actors and sci-fi old acquaintances John Colicos (left) and Barry Morse (center) in a CBC Radio Recording Session (source). Colicos will star in Battlestar Galactica; Barry Morse in Space: 1999.

Rain's roles in TV and in subsequent movie were more 'cameos' than real performances; he came back reluctantly for 2010 (1984, convinced by an undisclosed hefty sum of money) and, before that, had a humorous role as the 'evil' computer in Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973).

The evil computer voiced by Douglas Rain in Sleeper (1973)

a recent picture of Douglas Rain (source)

Dr. Victor F. Kaminsky

In Clarke's novel his name is spelled 'Kaminski'. We don't know much about this character, no. 2 in the Survey Team that was to analyze the giant monolith that orbited Saturn (yes, it was Jupiter in the movie!)

According to a set of continuity sheets I checked out in the Kubrick Archive in London (SKA/12/3/4/1), for the two close-ups seen in the pictures above Kaminsky was played by none other than Ivor Powell, publicity department liaison (uncredited) in 2001 and later producer for Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). The two had met when both where collaborating on a TV commercial for the BBC; Powell went on to become a first assistant director at RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in London's West End.

UPDATE: I got in contact with Ivor Powell and he recounted me some great memories of his experience on 2001, in this article.

 

Ivor Powell (sources: imdb.com; facebook.com/Panzer88Movie)

In another set of continuity sheets, though, (SKA/12/3/4/2) we learn that Kaminsky was also 'played' by Arnold Schulkes, long-time stand-in for Dirk Bogarde and 'extra' in many productions (he also appeared in Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451).

I feel Schulkes is at least one of the following Kaminskies:

Arnold Schulkes (source)

Fun trivia: therpf.com user Larry Young pointed out that V. F. Kaminsky was a Soviet physicist active in the 60's and 70's, making him the possible name source for Arthur C. Clarke (today Kaminsky, VF it's also the name of a rock band!)

Dr. Jack R. Kimball

Dr. Kimball was known in the novel as Peter Whitehead, geophysicis and leader of the survey team, the first to be awaken in case of emergency (that's what Bowman did, but to little avail). In Jack Hagerty's majestic book Spaceship Handbook (2001), a speculation is reported

that this was done to acknowledge Ward Kimball, Walt Disney's producer/director who created that studio's Man In Space series, in which many of the hardware concepts used by Kubrick apparently originated.

According to the first set of continuity sheets (SKA/12/3/4/1) in London, for his close-ups (shot in July 13 and 14, 1966, when the main photography for the centrifuge scene was already over) two different actors were used: Ken Hutchins (13/7) and David Baker (14/7).

While we have no info about the latter, according to britmovie.co.uk user Scott Palmer, 

Ken Hutchins (born 1936) was also a cricket coach, and later did film security work. He began working as a movie extra in 1956, and last worked on the film Love Actually in 2003 (as far as I am aware). He remembered five or six hundred films he worked on.

Could he be the Kimball pictured in the following blu-ray capture from the movie?

 

According to the second set of continuity sheets, though (SKA/12/3/4/2), Kimball was also 'played' - by Kubrick's assistant director Derek Cracknell - again! Is it him in the second picture below, captured from one of HAL's screen)?

This lovely picture of Cracknell with his daughter Sarah comes from an interesting article about her that appeared on The Telegraph. 

Dr. Charles B. Hunter

Poor Charlie, always the neglected one, in the novel (he was the last to be revived in case of emergency) and in the movie (we get only a fleeting glimpse of him in one of HAL's screens):

At least we can see him in this nice sketch (not drawn by Dullea but by Tony Masters, 2001's production designer):

According to two sets of continuity sheets (SKA/12/3/4/3 and SKA/12/3/4/2) I checked out in London, Hunter was 'played' by Arnold Schulkes, him again! and by Jon Kelley (though spelled John Kelly in the documents).

Kelley was an announcer in the Forces Broadcasting Service and at Tyne Tees Television. He moved to Associated-Rediffusion in London and remained until the station closed in 1968. Before becoming an experienced stage actor, Kelley  appeared in other two sci-fi cult shows: the TV series U.F.O. and the movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) (source: britmovie.co.uk)

Kelley as S.H.A.D.O. Skydiver crew member Lt. John Masters (U.F.O., 1970)