Steve Ihnat - Film and Television Career

Film and Television Career

Ihnat moved to the United States in 1958 to pursue a career in acting and attended the Pasadena Playhouse. He gained United States citizenship. At a time when he had difficulty finding work he enlisted in the U.S. Army for two years and served at Headquarters and Headquarters U.S. Army, Port Inchon, South Korea. In 1960, Pvt. Ihnat won second prize in the Republic of Korea poetry contest for his entry titled "Toil in the Night."

Ihnat guest-starred in several television series during the 1960s and is best known by Star Trek fans as Garth of Izar from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Whom Gods Destroy" The Fugitive episode "Cry Uncle" "The Walls of Night" Ihnat held over seventy guest star credits in such well known series as Gunsmoke ("Exodus 21:22", "Jenny" with Lisa Gerritsen (December 28, 1970), and "Noose of Gold"), Bonanza ("A Dream to Dream" and "Terror at 2:00"), The Virginian ("Jed" and "Last Grave at Socorro Creek"), Mission: Impossible ("The Mind of Stefan Miklos"), Cimarron Strip ("The Hunted"), I Dream of Jeannie ("My Master the Rainmaker"), Mannix ("End Game" and "To Catch the Lightning"), The F.B.I. ("Region of Peril" and "The Prey"), The Outer Limits ("The Inheritors"), The Name of the Game ("The Chains of Command" and "Nightmare"), Medical Center (TV series) ("Fright and Flight") and Perry Mason ("The Case of the Duplicate Case") but never achieved major fame for starring in movies or his own television series.

As an actor, he first achieved wide notice for his portrayal of a mind-controlled lieutenant in the science fiction television series The Outer Limits. His extended speech at the end of that double episode, "The Inheritors — Part 1 & Part 2" (1964), is one of the most affecting moments in television. Ihnat eventually became one of the most in-demand A-list guest stars of the 1960s.

Ihnat's most famous role in Mission: Impossible was that of brilliant Soviet Union investigator Stefan Miklos in the 1969 episode "The Mind of Stefan Miklos," widely praised as one of the most cerebral and intelligent episodes of the entire series. While he played other roles (mostly villains) in the show, his performance in this episode is his most memorable.

From 1964 to 1968 he appeared in eight feature films. He often played villains, using his abilities to subtly turn one-dimensional characters into complex and multi-dimensional antagonists. In 1967, Lamont Johnson cast him in the Richard Boone film Kona Coast in which Ihnat played a murderous playboy in Hawaii doping up teenagers and causing mayhem to Boone's property and person. In 1968, he memorably portrayed a murderous thug in the film Madigan, starring Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda and a NASA administrator in the film Countdown, directed by Robert Altman and starring James Caan and Robert Duvall. Other films of note during this period included In Like Flint and Hour of the Gun.

Ihnat was a screenwriter and director as well. He wrote, produced and starred in "Do Not Throw Cushions Into The Ring," which while never released, led to his receiving the plum position of directing The Honkers, starring James Coburn, with whom he had appeared in In Like Flint. He also co-wrote the movie with Stephen Lodge.