‘Master of disguise’ dies at 89

ACTOR Martin Landau, whose versatile screen career stretched from the 1960s TV series Mission: Impossible to his Oscar-winning turn in Ed Wood, has died aged 89.

Brooklyn-born Landau died on Saturday of unexpected complications during a hospital stay in Los Angeles, according to a statement issued by publicist Dick Guttman.

Landau (pictured) got his start on Broadway in the 1950s, before a 1959 film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. His varied roles ranged from

Cleopatra, to

The Greatest Story Ever Told and Nevada Smith. That was before his success as the master of disguise Rollin Hand in the Mission: Impossible TV series. He was nominated for three Emmys and a Golden Globe in 1968.

In the 1980s, Landau made a strong screen comeback starring in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1988 Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and Woody Allen’s

Crimes and Misdemeanors the following year. He earned Oscar nominations for both.

But it was not until 1994 that he scooped up the Best Supporting Oscar playing horror film star Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood. In recent years he starred on TV hits Entourage and Without a Trace.