by George Takei
Our perception of beauty is so stereotyped. The ingredients and proportions that go into forming our conventional notions of beauty are based more on tradition than genuine experience. When I first saw Persis, I was startled by her baldness. That’s all I saw—a shining-pated, hairless woman. When the shock receded, I saw her beauty. Eventually I came to see her whole—her baldness as a part of her radiant loveliness. And she had an exquisitely formed head. Somehow, her baldness made her beauty closer to perfection. She seemed more alluringly pristine, more sensuous, more nude.
I realized that Gene, in his artfully foxy way, was again challenging another hidebound old conceit. Hair as the “crowning glory.” Beauty can be found in limitless guises and inconceivable conditions if one is open to discoveries. I chalked another one up for Gene’s credo of “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” And the clever rascal was demonstrating this with a glamorous foreign woman. Ilia’s gorgeously unadorned head, as a matter of fact, inspired more than a few surreptitious soundstage jokes about leading men who couldn’t go as boldly as Persis did.
Persis was as beautiful a person as she was a beautiful-looking woman. She was eager to share her Indian heritage with us, inviting Nichelle, Walter, Jimmy, and me to her apartment near the studio for delicious Indian pastry and tea after work. She hosted a sumptuous Tandoori dinner for us at a West Los Angeles Indian restaurant. On the set, she tried to teach me a few basic phrases from her language, Parsi. But, since Persis was the only Parsi-speaking person I knew, I couldn’t retain any of the phrases she so graciously tried to teach me.
* * *
There was so much that was different and wonderful about coming back to do STAR TREK. But some things hadn’t changed. With each passing day, memories of the tensions from the days of the television series started to “ping” back. It was like going back home after a year away at college, looking forward to the return with nostalgia-clouded anticipation, only to come home and be reminded of the reality that Daddy and Mama bickered. We remembered only the good; time had faded the bad. Now those faded memories came rushing vividly back to life.
Walter came up with a clever bit of business for Chekov in a shot. I saw Bill go into a huddle with Bob Wise. An intensely whispered exchange ensued. Shortly thereafter, the camera placement was changed. Walter was no longer in the shot.
Nichelle had her close-up to do. Although she had diligently delivered her off-camera lines for Bill’s close-up, Bill was not available to do his for her close-up. The script supervisor droned Bill’s lines lifelessly off-camera for Nichelle.
Rewrites on sheets of changing colors would be delivered, and we’d find our lines cut. The cuts usually favored Bill. Perhaps Bill had nothing to do with the excisions. But our history-conditioned sensibilities couldn’t help suspecting.
Bill’s almost ingrained behavior troubled and puzzled me. He was the star of the picture. Why was he so insecure about any of us getting even a brief chance to shine? None of us were threats to his position. A confident actor would relish being surrounded by a full company of actively contributing players to bounce his performance off. Bill was the reminder to me that coming back to STAR TREK also meant coming back to nettlesome irritation.
But there were greater tensions starting to strain nerves on the production. The special effects in this film were on a scale many times grander than anything we had had on television. Many times more complex, and much more time-consuming.
The “blue screen” process required endless hours of waiting in front of a giant, luminous bluish screen while the technicians fine-tuned this knob and delicately tweaked that modulator. When they were set, it was only to play a simple scene that we had to repeat over and over, time after ceaseless time. It was monotonous and draining.
Much more draining than monotonous was the “worm hole” sequence. The Enterprise was plunged into a black hole, and all at once, our entire ship was transformed into a trembling, oscillating environment. The illumination fluttered. Our bodies quivered and shook. Our voices ululated with the vibration. From the moment Bob Wise shouted “Action!” and the cameras started to be shaken, we had to start shivering and speaking our dialogue in broken, quavering voices. And this sequence took more than a week to film. Day after day, on the word “Action!” we became animated blobs of Jell-O. By the end of the day, we were a bunch of shaken-up, cross-eyed, and totally exhausted automatons. Even when we were done with the sequence, we had become so conditioned to trembling on cue that every time we heard the call for “Action!” like Pavlov’s dogs, we automatically felt the impulse to start shaking.
Almost imperceptibly, black suits from the front office began hovering around the dark periphery of the set. The special effects were taking longer than scheduled. The costs were starting to mount. Frowning faces began whispering in Bob Wise’s ear. We were in trouble. But Bob maintained his equanimity through it all. The tension on the soundstage became palpable, but Bob never allowed it to seep onto the set. He continued to keep a calm, creative environment for the cast and crew.
When the picture was finished, we celebrated. Gene, Bob, Bill, and Leonard hosted the catered party on the set. What we had originally never imagined would happen, what had then kept us on the tether of suspense for years hinting that it might happen, had now actually happened. Then it was over. Like a much-anticipated, activity-packed vacation, it was over. STAR TREK: THÉ MOTION PICTURE was in the can.
But there was no relief from anxiety. The complicated visual effects hadn’t been seen by anybody yet except the people at Robert Abel and Associates. They had been contracted by Paramount to produce the magic. But Abel wouldn’t show them, claiming that the effects weren’t quite ready to be seen. Walter again became my narrator of the unfolding drama of postproduction. His regular phone calls kept me abreast.
“Robert Abel is finally going to show the stuff.”
“They canceled!”
“Paramount is forcing Abel to show them.”
“Abel finally showed the effects, and it’s a mess! We can’t use them.”
“My god! Paramount fired Robert Abel! Our picture is unreleasable.”
“Guess what? Doug Trumbull has been brought in to save the situation. He’s starting from scratch!”
“You won’t believe this! Paramount is determined to get the stuff from Trumbull in nine months! That’s impossible!”
“They’re crazy! Paramount wants to release the film in December!”
* * *
While Walter was keeping me apprised of the drama going on at Paramount Studios, I had returned to my work with the Rapid Transit District. But at the same time, I had another drama, a personal heartache to tend. My father was critically ill.
Daddy had been ill for almost a year. He had been in and out of the hospital with an ailment that the doctors could not diagnose. My parents, in recent years, had been traveling extensively. They enjoyed places off the beaten track. They had visited Russia, South America, Iran, Africa, India, and the South Pacific. The doctors suspected my father had picked up a rare virus, perhaps on a visit to one of those destinations. Daddy’s condition would suddenly deteriorate, and he would have to be rushed to the hospital, only to recover miraculously and be able to come back home again. The wild fluctuations of the affliction were tearing away at his spirit. For us, it was wrenching. We had to stand by helplessly, watching him progressively worsen.
There was an important September meeting of the American Public Transit Association in New York. I was serving as vice president, and there were sessions I was scheduled to conduct. Daddy was in another of his periods of respite from the ups and downs of his illness. But he knew of my scheduled annual meeting.
“Go to the meeting in New York,” he urged me in his reedy, barely audible whisper. It was so much like him. Throughout his life, he disguised his own suffering for the sake of his children. Even when he had to work below his qualifications, he worked cheerfully, untiringly, swallowing the bitterest tastes so that h
is children could live with the dignity that circumstances denied him. I wondered what pain he must have been masking when he urged me to go to New York. But I knew his desire for his son to be there conducting that meeting was greater than any discomfort from his illness. It was what he wanted most from me—however he might be suffering.
I held his withered hand. This hand that guided me so tenderly as a child, encouraged me through adolescence, worked for me in so many ways, washing dishes in Chinatown, pressing other people’s clothes, the hand that took such pride in stuffing my campaign mailers, that loved me throughout his life in so many countless ways and wore itself out for me. I held him for a long time, feeling an unquenchable love. “All right, Daddy. I’ll go to New York.” Then I said, “Good-bye.”
When I returned to my hotel room from a session of the transit conference, the red message light on the telephone was blinking. It was from June, my sister-in-law. “Please call home,” it said. I called Mama’s phone, but there was no answer. I called Henry’s and June’s, but there also, nobody was home. I finally called the hospital and learned of Daddy’s death.
The five-hour flight across the country was the longest, darkest, loneliest journey I ever made. The black emptiness of the sky, the vastness of the night, almost matched the desolation I felt. Far down there, somewhere in the darkness, was Arkansas. I thought of that golden afternoon when he freed us from barbed wire confinement for a magical jeep ride through the swamps. He loved driving us places. He loved showing us new things. He loved opening our eyes. I remembered those drives around Los Angeles when he showed us the great universities, UCLA and USC. He liked pointing the way for us. Even when I decided to become an actor, he still pointed the way. He sent me to England and the Shakespeare Institute. Whatever we did, he urged us to reach for the highest star. This man who became my biggest STAR TREK fan also became an inveterate RTD bus rider. He loved coming downtown on the bus to meet me for lunch. This man, even when he slowed down, always urged me to keep moving. To go to New York. Always to keep participating, keep contributing. And now he was gone, and I was flying through this darkness. Flying across this vast night country for my last good-bye.
* * *
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE premiered as scheduled on December 7, 1979, in Washington, D.C. Douglas Trumbull had pulled it off. His team produced the special effects by working frenetically day and night and taking turns sleeping at a motel across the street from the studio. What they delivered was visually gorgeous. But dramatically, I thought, the effects had an unvarying sameness and became wearisome. There seemed to have been more drama and suspense in the Trumbull team’s race to complete the effects in time for the scheduled opening than in the results themselves.
The movie seemed to have successfully attained the Vulcan condition of kolinahr—the shedding of all emotions—a state Spock was striving for at the beginning of the film. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE seemed cold, detached, dispassionate. Despite the awesome force the Enterprise confronted in V’ger, there was a strange absence of any sense of jeopardy.
When the end credits started to roll, I turned to Walter, who was seated next to me. His expression was as nonplussed as mine. With so much creative and technical energy expended, with so much money invested, with so much hope and anticipation riding, what had happened? The crafting of drama was still a mysterious coming together of talent, chemistry, and fortune.
But the premiere was a gala affair with politicians, space people, and fans galore. The postscreening party at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian was a rare combination of Hollywood glamour and Washington pomp, fused with the dynamism of high technology. We celebrated, mingling and wandering among the artifacts of our real space adventures: a chunk of the moon rock, the actual space capsule, the moon suit worn by astronauts. We toasted the first model of the Starship Enterprise that was now a permanent part of the Smithsonian’s collection.
All through this festive evening, however, I couldn’t suppress a secret wish, a wish that seemed to arise nowadays whenever I was happiest. I kept wishing that my father could have been here with me in Washington, D.C. I wished he could have seen STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. I wished I could somehow have shared this happiness with him.
23
Wrath of Khan and Other Demons
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was a giant surprise success. As the box office revenue continued to climb, rumors again started to circulate about a sequel. Again, Walter kept the phone lines buzzing.
“Guess what? It looks good for STAR TREK, but not too good for Roddenberry. Paramount wants to make a sequel. But because of the budget overruns on The Motion Picture, it looks like they’re trying to take the sequel project away from him.”
The film had taken its toll on Gene in many ways. The stress from the tensions of that film had caused his weight to balloon alarmingly. I started swinging by Paramount Studios on my morning runs to invite Gene to join me. I succeeded only a few times in getting him to jog easily around the studio lot with me. On these short and all too infrequent runs, he told me he was trying to control his diet also. But I could see that he was struggling with it. I sensed, as well, the difficulties he was having with Paramount. STAR TREK was really his baby, and he was battling to keep it. I hoped he would prevail; I wanted him to keep STAR TREK. But I also wanted him to lose some of his added weight. Somehow, he never seemed to be able to lose what he had gained.
“Guess what? We’re going back to television. The next STAR TREK is going to be a TV miniseries.”
But Walter called back a few weeks later.
“Change course. We’re back to a feature again. But it’s going to be produced by Paramount’s television division instead of the feature films unit.”
A few weeks more and he called again.
“It’s a definite go. They’ve signed an executive producer, a guy named Harve Bennett. He has a rep for holding to a tight budget. Gene’s only a consultant!”
Harve Bennett was a name I recognized. I had worked for him a few years back when I did a guest appearance on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. I had played a Tibetan Sherpa who guides Lee Majors up the Himalaya Mountains. At the time that I was cast, I told him that I was a runner and that I’d also done some rock climbing. He was delighted that I would be able to bring some reality to the climbing scenes. But like a prudent producer, he scheduled my risky rock climbing sequences at the very end of the shooting schedule. I could fall and be incapacitated, but the production would be all right; he’d have all my other scenes safely in the can by then. And like a frugal producer, I noticed when we shot the climbing scene, he had saved on the cost of one stuntman. No other actor was hardy—or foolish—enough to be dangling from the side of a cliff but me.
Harve Bennett was a new decision maker coming on board, but we already had a working relationship. Here was a new opportunity to improve my situation on STAR TREK. I decided that an early-on campaign to enhance Sulu’s role in the next film might be productive. I called and invited him to lunch at an elegant Japanese restaurant at the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo for some sushi and gentle lobbying.
It was a sparkling bright day when we met. Our table overlooked a serene Japanese garden with a wide, glassy waterfall slipping into a shallow pool. When we settled into our conversation, I sensed that Harve had an agenda of his own. He seemed anxious to allay any feelings of disquiet we might be having about a new producer taking over Gene’s baby.
“I have great respect for Gene Roddenberry and what he has created,” he stated. “I consider him the father of STAR TREK. He has done a fantastic job of nurturing his child. But the child grows and reaches a point where it needs a different kind of nurturing. I see myself as the teacher who takes that child from the father and guides it to the next stage of growth. I love STAR TREK just as much, and I can contribute to its development just as much, but in another distinct way. I hope you’ll help me do that.” Harve was eloquent, charming, and most persuasi
ve. I felt I could comfortably talk with him.
“You can count on me,” I affirmed. “You’re right about STAR TREK, Harve. I agree about its having reached a point where visible new growth is timely. You know that the officers on the bridge are supposed to be outstanding professionals, some of the best in Starfleet. So far, though, this fact hasn’t been evidenced in their career development.” I guided the conversation to the point I wanted to make with Harve. “Now, Sulu is supposed to be a top graduate of the Academy. He’s highly capable and ambitious. But he’s been stuck at that helm console for a decade and a half! If Starfleet is a true meritocracy, Sulu would have had his own command by now. He’s earned it, eminently. And by promoting him to his deserved captaincy, it would speak volumes for the vigor and health of Starfleet itself.”
Harve smiled in agreement as the clear soup in a classic black lacquer bowl was served. Three lavender chrysanthemum petals floated in artful simplicity. The sushi that followed were delicate morsels of beauty to the eyes and to the palate. We had a delectable and amiable afternoon.
* * *
“Guess what?” I knew by now that this wasn’t really a question with an answer expected. It was Walter’s usual exclamatory punctuation to any exciting new development. “We’ve got a director for STAR TREK II. He’s the guy who directed Time After Time. Remember that one? His name is Nicholas Meyer.”
Now I had the other person I wanted to lobby. But I didn’t have Meyer’s number. So I called Harve and invited both him and Meyer for another lunch. A week passed, and Harve didn’t call back. So I called him again.
“George, sorry I haven’t gotten back,” he apologized. “But Nick’s deep in perp work and seems not to be able to find time.”
“Well, can you arrange a meeting for me with him at his convenience? Any time. I’ll work around his schedule.” The director was a key person in my campaign. I was determined to move heaven and Harve to talk to Nick Meyer in the early stages of preproduction. The next day Harve called back.
