by George Takei
“Did you know them?” I asked.
“I choreographed the swordplay in The Adventures of Robin Hood,” he revealed.
“You did?” I was completely taken off guard by this stunning remark. Robin Hood was one of my favorite boyhood movies back in East L.A. I had thrilled at the duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. After the movie, I had Mama sew me a Robin Hood costume, and our backyard became Sherwood Forest.
“Oh, yes.” Mr. Faulkner smiled. “As a matter of fact, I doubled for Rathbone in the fight sequences. Flynn was terrified of him.”
“You mean that was your back I was watching in those shots of Errol Flynn clashing swords with Basil Rathbone?”
“All except when you saw Rathbone’s face.” He grinned proudly.
I was flabbergasted. This man who was coaching me in my fencing, whom I had randomly plucked out of the telephone book only because he was conveniently located, this was the very man who had swept me away with his blood-stirring swordsmanship when I was a boy. What incredible luck, I thought.
“Okay, I’m ready to go again,” I announced. With new resolve and vigor, I launched into my thrusts and parries. It wasn’t too hard to imagine myself as Errol Flynn now. I was crossing swords with his adversary. We clanged away with gusto until my hour was up and my energy completely spent.
At last! It was the first day of filming on “Naked Time.” I got up at the crack of dawn’s pale light, and instead of my usual morning run, I huffed and puffed through my fencing exercises, showered, then drove off to the studio. Nichelle, Leonard, and the actor playing the navigator this week, Bruce Hyde, were already in their makeup seats. Bill was getting the first part of his makeup done in his dressing room. I mumbled my good mornings to everyone, introduced myself to Bruce, gave my breakfast order of cereal with skim milk, a bran muffin, and a slice of cantaloupe to Greg Peters, the assistant director, and settled into my makeup chair. Marc Daniels, the director of this episode, roamed into the room to exchange a few cheering pleasantries and then roamed out. The banging and the shouting from the set was beginning to pick up in tempo and volume.
With my makeup done, I picked up a cup of coffee at the urn and strolled over to the schedule board. I wanted to check for a possible day off before my fencing scenes were up, for a final workout with Mr. Faulkner. As always, we would begin filming for this episode with the bridge scenes, all of them bunched together—the opening, the scenes scattered throughout the script, and the final tag. We had a lot of bridge scenes in this show, including one of my fencing sequences, so we were on the bridge for half of the six-day schedule.
No luck. The corridor scenes, where my other fencing took place, came right after the three days on the bridge. I’d have to dive in with only three weeks of frenetic fencing lessons. With that thought, I left the noisy pounding and bellowing of the crew on the soundstage for the peace and breakfast waiting for me in my dressing room.
As I was having my cereal, there was a knock on the dressing room door.
“Come in,” I mumbled, quickly wiping the milk off my lips. It was Marc Daniels. He had directed the last episode, “Man Trap,” and was back again for this one. He had a keen sense for details and was getting a fine feel for the workings of the show.
“George, I have a thought. Can you take your shirt off for me?” he asked without explanation. But immediately, I knew what he had in mind.
“Sure,” I answered, swallowing my breakfast. I shucked off my T-shirt and discreetly sucked in my stomach. He appraised my bared torso as if he were shopping for a leg of lamb.
“Okay,” he said nonchalantly. “Let’s play your fencing scenes shirtless.” He closed the door and was off. Straightaway, I got down horizontally on the floor, put my feet on the couch, and began pumping out push-ups to build up a photogenic chest.
During the next few days, people walking past my dressing room may have wondered what sort of nefarious activity might be going on inside that was making the portable structure rock with such sensuous rhythm. Whatever wild imaginings they might have had, the truth was that I was conscientiously pumping up the pectorals for my shirtless scenes of heroic swashbuckling.
Another distorted story from this episode has almost become fact through repetition and must be set straight. It is believed by many that I cannot be trusted with a sword in my hand. The story was published in The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield, and it said that I went around the set accosting my colleagues with my fencing foil, just as Sulu did in this episode. This is a highly one-sided and incomplete accounting of what really happened.
On a movie soundstage, it is not unusual to come across an actor in a darkened corner walking around talking to himself. He isn’t crazy. He is merely going over his dialogue preparing for his scene about to be filmed. In this episode, “Naked Time,” my scenes involved not just dialogue but fencing as well. So I found a flat in an out-of-the-way corner of the stage and began rehearsing my routine of thrusts and parries behind it. I suppose I might have been making some odd sounds—huffs and puffs, some stamps and occasional grunts.
Now, Jimmy Doohan is a man of insatiable curiosity. Nothing unusual ever gets past him uninspected. True to character, his inquiring mind was roused by the sounds I was making, tucked far away behind my flat, and he came snooping around searching for the source of the strange noises.
Another characteristic of Jimmy’s is that he possesses an impeccable sense of timing, a most useful trait for an actor. So keen was his timing that he peered around my flat just at the very moment when I was lunging with my foil. I cut through the air, missing Jimmy’s nose by inches. His eyes popped round with surprise. I quickly tried to apologize, but before I could, he was off and running.
A third quality of Jimmy’s is that he has that wonderful Irish gift for drama, an essential for actors. But with Jimmy, it often expresses itself in inflamed and hugely magnified rhetoric. Within minutes, word was broadcast throughout the set that George had “attacked” Jimmy. Some versions even had Jimmy bloodied! Greg Peters, the assistant director, noted this in his day’s report to the front office. This half-truth was picked up by writer Whitfield and published in The Making of Star Trek. But the verifiable whole truth is that as an actor of integrity, I was minding my own business preparing for my scene, far out of the way of others, when a nosy busybody openly placed himself, however unwittingly, in harm’s way.
By the fourth day of filming “Naked Time,” we were into the corridor sets. My fencing scenes were done, and Leonard’s big breakdown scene was coming up next. Everyone was acutely aware of the importance of this scene. I was anxious to see how he handled it.
Leonard had already established a complex, drivingly logical, and rigorously controlled character. Alien, yet not only understandable, but strangely sympathetic. Yet in this episode, he had to reveal his seething human emotions that had been held tightly in check, a devastating break of his stern Vulcan exterior. The virulent mystery virus that had infected the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise was destroying even Spock’s steely capacity for restraint.
Watching Leonard craft the scene of Spock’s breakdown was a rare lesson in acting. After quiet discussion with Marc Daniels, he searched the sprawling set of the starship and found a secluded, closed-off room for the breakdown. Leonard insisted that Spock would not expose such a wrenchingly private moment to others, especially to Nurse Chapel, who was in love with him. Then he asked that he be given some time to ready himself. There was no air of self-indulgence so often exercised by stars. Only pure, intense concentration.
When he was ready, he quietly stepped in front of the camera. The camera started to roll, and Marc Daniels whispered, “Action.” Spock came striding down the corridor unsteadily, clearly disturbed, and quietly slipped into the room. The door whooshed closed. There was silence . . . a tremblingly hushed tension. Something was wrong with Spock. Slowly, with every muscle straining for control, he sat himself down. Almost imperceptibly, a quiver rolled across his lips
. Fierce determination gripped his entire body. Then like a great, solid dam about to burst, his body began to shake. The anguish, so immense, so firmly and so long contained, was no longer bearable even by the powerful Vulcan. And he broke. The pain that came bursting out in convulsive heavings was excruciating, wrenching, and embarrassing. We felt vulgar intruding on this awful, private sorrow. But we watched, mesmerized.
“Cut.” Marc’s voice was barely audible, almost apologetic. For a moment, there was shamed silence. Then the entire cast and crew burst into spontaneous applause. Leonard was brilliant. Sheer, consummate artistry within the tight confines of a rigid television shooting schedule. Leonard set high standards on our set; by his example, he made all of us try to meet them.
The schedule board that doled out time in quarter pages of the script and busily kept us moving from set to set was also the dispenser of unwelcome time off. We complained about the tight schedule, but we also grumbled about furloughs from the set when the scenes being filmed didn’t include us. I had too many of them, and I much preferred moaning about how the studio overworked me. For the one day I had off from “Naked Time,” I have a special regret.
There was another performance from this episode that I wish I had been on the set to watch. It was the day that Bill’s big scene was up. My disappointment at missing his performance live became even greater when I saw the show when it was aired. Bill was brilliant.
Kirk, too, had ultimately been infected by the deadly virus, but even more horribly than the rest of us—for he was agonizingly aware of his condition. He desperately tried to maintain self-control as the terrible disease finally waged its battle inside the captain, for his ship and for his mind. There were many levels of consciousness that Bill had to play with urgent intensity. Given the stringent constraints of television, Bill’s performance in that scene was an amazing display of virtuosity.
As the final credits rolled over a shot of a glistening-chested Sulu, I realized again that an extraordinary company of actors surrounded me on STAR TREK. And what an uncommon achievement “Naked Time” was, not only for television, but as a work of dramatic science fiction.
* * *
We had been laboring for months under the most intense pressure and had reached the midway point in the season’s filming. The time for tasting the first fruit of our labors was fast approaching. The opening night of STAR TREK’s premier season was almost upon us.
Desilu asked me to go to Chicago to promote this happy event, and I was more than pleased to go. Chicago is not far from Milwaukee, where my brother, Henry, had been doing graduate studies in periodontics at Marquette University. And he and his wife, June, had just had their first child, named Scott. This would be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate two firsts: the launching of our new series and the birth of my first nephew.
It was a happily expectant actor/uncle that found himself in Chicago chatting on radio and television, lunching with print reporters, and anxiously looking forward to the night of September 8, 1966.
That morning, after my promotional work was finished, Henry, June, and baby Scotty drove down to Chicago to pick me up. My debut with Scotty was a warm, gurgling success. Not a cry of protest when I apprehensively received the fat, shapeless bundle from June. I cradled him halfway up to Milwaukee without a single wail of complaint. I had passed my first test as an uncle. The next as a series actor on television was coming only a few hours later.
That night, I sat on pins and needles in front of the television set in Henry and June’s living room. A softly babbling Scotty was propped up on my lap. Henry looked on expectantly while June was in the kitchen preparing coffee and cookies.
“June! Hurry! It’s starting now!” I shouted as the soaring theme music that was to become so familiar came on. She rushed out balancing a clattering tray as the U.S.S. Enterprise appeared streaking out of the star-flecked darkness for the very first time. Then in great, bold letters, the title STAR TREK. The episode was “The Man Trap.” Our journey was now launched! I wondered how Gene Roddenberry must be feeling right now back in Los Angeles. The next hour seemed to zip by, practically at warp speed.
The first critical commentary came about halfway through the show when Scotty fell asleep on my lap. Then, as the final credits were rolling, June said, “That was . . . interesting. But I’m not really a science fiction buff so I really can’t say. But you were very . . . interesting.”
Henry waited until the commercials came on. Then he observed, “They pay you for that, huh?” After a pause, he added, “That’s good.” I think he meant it was good that I got paid. But I wasn’t sure if that might not have been his comment on the show, too, so I left well enough alone.
* * *
The early reviews may have been tepid but weren’t unexpected. Pioneering is never done in front of cheerleaders urging on a roaring grandstand of popular approval. STAR TREK was venturing out into new and uncharted television space. Yet, a hardy group of viewers did discover us and began letting us know of their support. The letters started coming, first in small dribs, then larger drabs that soon turned into a steadily flowing stream of enthusiastic fan mail. Some were excited by the imaginative science fiction, others were intrigued by the speculative technology, and they all seemed to love the characters—especially the alien, Mr. Spock.
Though I had been impressed by Leonard Nimoy the actor, I never anticipated this massive reception for such a cool, dispassionate, and weird-looking character. His physical qualities certainly didn’t seem to have the stuff of popular appeal, not in the usual sense. A voice too dry, a physique too gaunt, and a face more inscrutably, well . . . alien, than would normally generate such heat.
From then on, I watched Spock on screen more closely. I realized then that what Leonard the actor was projecting with his cool restraint was not the muscularity of a physique he didn’t have, but the powerful attraction of a complex, agile, and strong mind. He was transmitting, right through the screen, what had impressed me in person on the set, capturing both the minds and the hearts of the viewers. Through the power of his performance, Leonard was giving intelligence the mystery and the pull of sex appeal. As a result, he was becoming the thinking person’s heartthrob.
Spock’s blossoming popularity, however, created unanticipated problems on the set. We already had the traditional slot of the heartthrob and classic square-jawed hero filled with Bill Shatner. But the bags holding the fan mail for Leonard were heavier. Much heavier. And the tension on the set got keener. We all discovered how keen one unforgettably long and nerve-racking morning.
Life magazine was doing a photo essay on Leonard Nimoy getting made up as Mr. Spock. Because of the time-consuming complexity of the job, Leonard was always the first in the makeup room early in the mornings. Usually, Nichelle and Grace Lee Whitney followed. Then the rest of us came staggering in, still bleary-eyed.
By that time, Leonard’s makeup was about half on, and that morning, the photographer was starting to get his rhythm. Bill walked in and was stopped in his tracks by what he saw. Then he turned around and quickly left. Shortly thereafter, an assistant rushed into the makeup room and asked the photographer to leave. Leonard’s makeup and the photo record were only half complete. Even when forcefully questioned, the assistant couldn’t give any reason for the dismissal, but had to insist that the photographer leave immediately. Orders from the front office, he kept repeating. Reluctantly, the photographer packed up his cameras and left, his job incomplete.
Leonard, understandably, was livid. He got up and refused to have his makeup completed until the photographer was allowed back. Until then, he announced, he would wait in his dressing room with his makeup only half done. And with that, he exited.
The rest of us sat silently listening to the drama playing out as our makeup was applied. Then we gathered at the soundstage coffee urn for our usual morning gossip fest. But this morning, our conversation was hushed, almost conspiratorial. It was whispered that Bill apparently had language in his
contract that provided for his approval of photographers on the stage.
Suddenly, a covey of black suits came rushing in. It headed straight for Leonard’s dressing room. We strolled over to the set with our cups of coffee and reconvened in the circle of our set-side chairs. The set was still and darkened. As we continued our furtive conversation, we saw the covey of black suits come out of Leonard’s dressing room and flutter over to Bill’s. We waited patiently beside a gloom-shrouded set, and we sipped our coffee. Some of us went back for refills, others stepped outside for a cigarette, as the black covey flew back and forth from one dressing room to the other. Hours passed, and the coffee was making us jittery. Morning was becoming almost midday. Greg Peters, the first assistant, came over to our circle and told us we could go off for an early lunch.
When we came back from a leisurely lunch, we were surprised to find the set lit and buzzing with activity. Leonard was at his station, his makeup complete to the very tip of his pointy ears. And Bill was in the captain’s seat laughing and joking with the crew as usual. We were ready to start work. Like good professionals we all took our positions, the cameras rolled, and we commenced with the day’s work as if nothing unusual had ever transpired.
A few months later, I noticed that Life magazine carried the complete photo story on Mr. Spock getting into his bizarre makeup. But it didn’t quite carry the full story on how bizarre that process had been.
* * *
The first season filming STAR TREK was turbulent. The highs were sublime; but the hours were long and arduous, the tension was at times piano-wire taut, and the pressure to meet the schedule was always intense. We thought it was all-consuming on the set, but at least we went home to our own beds at night. Out in the front office, Gene was sometimes sleeping over on his office couch rewriting scripts. In fact, we had two Genes now guiding us as producers—Gene Roddenberry and Gene Coon. Under the high pressure of producing an episode of gripping science fiction every week, the two Genes were providing the viewers with some of the most startlingly imaginative shows that television had ever seen.
