Roddy McDowall returns to his role as Caesar, the superior chimpanzee, in Arthur P. Jacobs' production of "Battle For the Planet Of The Apes" for 20th Century-Fox. However, though sequential to his part in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," he is playing the new film in quite a different way. In "Conquest" Roddy was for the most part a naïve victim. In "Battle" he is a leader involved in making decisions in a serious power struggle. Persons engaged in the making of both pictures thought there was some change in the makeup but there was not. The change is in McDowall's attack - a transformation which has sometimes been observable in humans when they have risen to a position of great responsibility. McDowall has been starred in four of the five films in the "Apes" series, missing only "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" because of a prior commitment. In the last two he has had the unusual experience of portraying the son of his character in the original picture. A child star at 20th Century-Fox, McDowall has been busy for that company for the past couple of years. In addition to the "Apes," he has been starred in "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Legend of Hell House." For other producers he has made "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean;" has made two Movies of the Week and has appeared in segments of various major TV series. During the past decade McDowall has also won a reputation as a creative professional photographer. He has photographed many of the stars of stage and screen and his photographic layouts have been seen in leading magazines in the United States and Europe. Three years ago, Roddy accepted the position of contributing editor with Harper's Bazaar. His book, "double Exposure," went into a second printing. When he isn't puttering about his spacious bachelor apartment studio on upper Central Park Wes, McDowall can be found mingling with the cream of New York or London society.

Austin Stoker makes what is tantamount to his motion picture debut in a starring role in Arthur P. Jacobs' production of "Battle For The Planet Of The Apes." Another actor had been set for the part of MacDonald, a black human symmpathetic to the plight of apes in their period of enslavement and now the most valued human in a time of ape ascendance. The actor as the fates would have it was unable to complete a prior commitment. Stoker's agent told his bewildered client to go to 20th Century-Fox on Sunday, in the middle of the New Year's 1973 holiday. There he met producer Jacobs and director J. Lee Thompson and a on January 2, Stoker was working on the set of "Battle For The Planet Of The Apes." "I thought to myself, I've always known acting is a volatile profession, but this is ridiculous," Stoker recalls. "However, I'd studied hard and worked hard and knew I was as well prepared as I'd ever be. Fortunaltey we started with physical sequences and didn't get into the dramatics until some time later. Stoker is an only child born October 7 in Trinidad, West Indies, where he attended public schools. A good student, he skipped grades and entered the College of Our Lady of Fatima at 15. Two years later he joined a troupe formed by Geoffrey Holder, who later achieved fame as an interpreter of West Indian dance and music, and participated in a festival at San Juan, Puerto Rico. Stoker was on of a smaller group retained by Holder for an engagement at the Caribe Hilton.

Natalie Trundy appeared in the remaining three "Apes" series, the last two as a lady chimpanzee. In "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" she caught the eye of Roddy McDowall and in the final "Battle For the Planet of the Apes," she is his wife and the mother of their child. Playing an apes is not easy for Miss Trundy, since she must wear brown contact lenses over her blue eyes, which are extremely sensitive to them, and her fair complexion to the adhesives used in the apes makeup. However, she accepts these sacrifices to her art in stride. Miss Trundy won recognition as a thoroughly professional performer on stage and in films and TV before breaking her back in a car accident in 1963. The subsequent year in a hospital was followed by a year living in London, but the career was resumed in 1967, with many television roles.

Claude Akins portrays a particularly brutal gorilla, a child slayer, in Arthur P. Jacobs' production of "Battle For The Planet Of The Apes." Akins misdeeds are punished by Roddy McDowall, in the role of a chimpanzee, who chases him up a tall tree and forces him to fall to his death. This about par for the course for Akins, who estimates he has come to a deserved violent end in about two-thirds of his 42 feature films and in approximately half of his 142 television shows. Akins is about as close to being a model husband and father as can be found in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter. He is humorous and lighthearted and popular on the sets as well as with a large circle of friends. He plays golf with his son, tennis with his wife and swims with his two daughters. He gives every appearance of being at peace with himself and the world around him. Akins doesn't quite know why he is consistently cast as a villain. "I think my size has something to do with it," (he is six feet two and weighs 200 pounds, a weight he fights hard to maintain) Akins says. "I suppose it would be less dramatic to have the hero demolish a little fellow and then I guess the bad guy in movies has to look physically capable of great evil. Whatever the rationale, I'm in favor of it -- it has earned me a fine living for some years now."