On Tuesday, October 18, Netflix premiered the first three episodes of their reboot of the classic docuseries Unsolved Mysteries. Each story tackles cold cases of true crime and other strange and unexplainable events. Just in time for Halloween, we recommend you check out this show’s first batch of episodes–they’ll make your head scratch and make you mourn for the families who’ve lost dear loved ones.
Today’s Unsolved Mysteries is very different from the original series, but some things still have stayed the same. For starters, there will not be a host like Robert Stack, who introduces each case and discusses what happened. Netflix has not introduced a host yet because they’ve chosen to keep the show without one.
But before Forte and Stack got the job, they auditioned with two other hosts. Now we’re here to talk about their careers and what happened after they both appeared on the spooky documentary series.
Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack
Robert Stack was best known for hosting Unsolved Mysteries. He had the job for over a decade, taking over from Raymond Burr and Karl Malden as the show’s hosts. After its original run, he was nominated for an Academy Award and won an Emmy in 1960. Stack has been awarded numerous prestigious honours, including nominations and awards such as a Screen Actors Guild award and an Emmy.
Stack hosted the show Unsolved Mysteries until very late in 2003. During those years, he also narrated other shows and voiced characters in such shows as Hercules, The Angry Beavers, Butt-Ugly Martians, King of the Hill, and more. He died at 84 years old of heart failure.
Unsolved Mysteries host Raymond Burr
Actor Raymond Burr joined the first episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which became the pilot for the show. Burr starred in movies such as M (1951), Rear Window (1954), and multiple Godzilla installments throughout the ’50s-’80s. He specialized in playing bad guys in film noir, his most notable role being 20 episodes of Perry Mason, running from 1957 to 1966.
Unsolved Mysteries host Karl Malden
After Burr but before Stack was actor Karl Malden in the Unsolved Mysteries hosting job. He presented the second and third specials, which turned into those first episodes when they got picked up. Prior to the docuseries, he had appeared in a number of acclaimed films, including On the Waterfront (1954), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and Patton (1970).
After Unsolved Mysteries, Malden appeared in several TV movies like Back to the Streets of San Francisco, and They’ve Taken Our Children. He passed away in 2009 due to natural causes.
