Natalie Trundy

The Actress Who Survived Her Own Face

Natalie Trundy was not looking to become a science fiction curiosity when she debuted on Broadway at just twelve years old. New York critics saw in her an actress with early method skills and an unusual gift for observation for her age. In 1956, she shot The Monte Carlo Story alongside Vittorio De Sica and Marlene Dietrich. It seemed to be the start of a conventional career at the major Los Angeles studios.

But a car stopped everything in 1963.

A car accident fractured her spine and kept her out of the spotlight for nearly five years. Doctors doubted she would make a full recovery, and the industry wrote her off before she turned twenty-five. So Trundy had to learn to walk again while watching her contemporaries land the roles that once would have gone to her.

She returned to the sets when no one was expecting her.

Her comeback came through Arthur P. Jacobs. He was the producer of a franchise that would change fantasy cinema forever. In 1968, Trundy married Jacobs and became permanently tied to the Apes saga. She did so not as a classic beauty but as a makeup and prosthetics artist.

The Refuge Beneath the Latex

She played four different characters in four consecutive films.

In Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), she played Albina, one of the mutants who worshiped the atomic bomb in the subway ruins. The following year in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), she switched sides to play Dr. Stephanie Branton. In that Hollywood of tight budgets, reusing a face didn't matter as long as the talent worked behind the camera.

She shot much of her scenes under layers of heavy latex that completely hid her features. For Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and its sequel in 1973, she became Lisa, the chimpanzee who spoke the first word of the rebellion. It was a pragmatic decision that kept her away from the vanity typical of actresses of the era.

And the experiment worked.

Her relationship with Jacobs put her in a rare position of power in the industry. But the producer's death from a heart attack in 1973 forced her to make urgent business decisions. Trundy took control of APJAC Productions at a time of total financial uncertainty and mounting debt.

The Office Behind the Cameras

She had to manage the rights to a franchise that didn't yet know it would last forever. In 1974, she negotiated with the major studios to keep her husband's legacy afloat. She sold much of the assets to Fox to balance the production company's books and secure her children's future. That financial move allowed the franchise to survive the decades.

She gradually stepped away from acting. In 1985 she appeared in A Guide for the Married Woman, and soon after she decided her time in front of the public was over. She preferred the privacy of private life and art collecting over fighting for supporting roles on cable television.

She died in a nursing home in Los Angeles on December 5, 2019, at age 79.