by George Takei
“Nick is really pressed for time, George,” he began. I braced myself. I was determined not to take no for an answer. “But I’ve got a meeting with him here in my office at ten-thirty tomorrow morning. If you can make that, George, I’m willing to give up half an hour of my time with him.”
“I’ll take it,” I said immediately. “Thanks a lot, Harve. I really appreciate this. See you in the morning.”
When I walked into his office promptly at the appointed hour, Harve rose with a welcoming smile from his desk to introduce me to Nick Meyer. I looked at the person slouched in a big leather wing chair. A thick, unruly shock of jet-black hair cascaded down his forehead. He was surprisingly young. I had expected someone more mature. And he was unexpectedly short. The tall, grand formality of the wing chair seemed only to emphasize his smallness. But his smoldering intensity was palpable. His dark eyes were penetrating, probing, almost hostile. I walked toward him with my extended hand, and he took it perfunctorily . . . still seated. Maybe he didn’t want to get up to reveal his full height, I thought. Undaunted, after Harve’s prefatory pleasantries I launched into my spiel. Starfleet was a meritocracy. Sulu was an exemplar. A captaincy for Sulu would burnish Starfleet’s star as well as Sulu’s.
Nick just watched me with a detached, analytical stare as if he were studying a performance. Harve had probably told him already about the aim of my lobbying. His eyes just bored into me, but at the same time, I could almost feel him calculating, thinking, plotting what he was hearing into some grand scenario. In an unexpected way, I felt I was reaching him. I sensed Nick, ignoring civilities and any pretense at Hollywood cordiality, getting right to the core business, taking in new information, evaluating it, scheming, and arriving at some conclusion—all while listening to me make my case. He was compressing all this into the brief time we had allotted to us.
After my half hour was up, I left Harve’s office with a hopeful sense that I had persuaded him and Nick to the conclusion I wanted. At least, I felt I had been given a fair opportunity to present my case.
* * *
“Guess what?” I didn’t have to guess. My keeper of the chronicle had another exciting update for me. “Khan is returning! Harve has decided to extend the story from the television episode “Space Seed” for STAR TREK II. And he’s bringing back Ricardo Montalban.” This was exciting news. “Space Seed” was one of our most fun episodes, and Ricardo had made Khan a magnetic antagonist. But Walter’s good news was usually followed by the bad. I steeled myself for the next call.
Sure enough, it came. “Bad news! Leonard doesn’t want to do Spock. He’s insisting he be killed off in the movie. Can you believe it?”
As a fellow actor, I understood Leonard’s dilemma. The character he had portrayed had become immensely popular. His face had become synonymous with logic and laser-keen rationality. All this recognition was a tribute to his powers as an actor. Leonard had succeeded eminently as Spock.
The flip side of all this acclaim, however, was that Spock had become all-consuming. The actor was being devoured by the character he had played. It was destroying opportunities for him to truly practice his craft. This plundering popularity was stealing the most visible tool of his art—his face. Leonard Nimoy the actor, his visage, and the man himself were being turned into a walking, talking, living version of his character. I guessed that he had made the hard decision to reclaim his own face and his life by killing his creation.
“Guess what? Gene doesn’t want Spock killed. He’s resisting. But, you know what? Now, Leonard is insisting that his death be written into his contract! He really means it.” This was turning into a life-and-death struggle, but with the oddest twist. One of the combatants was battling for his own demise, the other for his adversary’s survival.
I understood Gene’s position as well. This was another dilemma of artists. As the author, Gene had a deep, indeed paternal, interest in his creations. Spock was a singularly inspired character. Naturally, the father would not want his child to die off. And yet, in the collaborative art of drama, a myriad of sometimes conflicting interests come into play. I wondered whose interest would prevail in this drama.
The answer came with the delivery of the script. I read it immediately, and I was blown away. It was powerful. The drama was the classic confrontation of two strong forces relentlessly, inevitably driving toward each other to a startling conclusion. And there was a poignant subtext, the awareness of loss—of change, of aging, and of the ultimate loss . . . death. Spock did die after all. What was Gene’s loss, though, was Leonard’s gain.
For all my determined lobbying, I had gained precious little. Sulu was still little more than an animated part of the technology on the bridge. My only consolation was a brief scene where Sulu achieved the goal for which I had so strenuously argued. Sulu received his promotion! On a shuttle craft with McCoy and Uhura, Kirk tells Sulu of his advance in rank to Captain in command of the U.S.S. Excelsior. It was a short sequence, but this was what I had so doggedly campaigned for. Sulu’s advance in rank was a part of the generational changes taking place. It was a part of the subtext of the film—with every loss, there was another gain. I had lost in my drive for a bigger part, but I had gained a captaincy. It would be a strategic advance if there should be a follow-up to STAR TREK II. I was eager to begin filming.
* * *
Ricardo Montalban was, as they used to say in Hollywood, bigger than life. The early morning hour in makeup is usually a calm and subdued beginning to the day. We shuffled in quietly, many of us still rubbing the remnants of sleep out of our eyes. Ricardo, however, was from another age of Hollywood . . . the golden days of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players. They didn’t shuffle in quietly. They were M-G-M stars. They made “entrances” wherever they went—including into makeup.
“Good morning, everybody,” his voice boomed in that musical Mexican accent. He stepped in brisk and bright-eyed, perfectly groomed save for makeup. “Good morning, Walter. Did you sleep well?” Then turning to the next chair, he would effuse, “Nichelle, darling, how do you do it at this hour? You look stunning!” Then soberly, “Well, Leonard, that’s going to be a tough scene today. But we’ll get it.” And he’d punctuate his certainty with a light, firm punch on the shoulders. “Buenas dias, Jorge. Que tal?” he would acknowledge me in Spanish and with a courtly nod of his head. After he had greeted everybody in the room with his full-chested morning salutations, no one could pretend sleepiness without risking another robust cheer-up from Ricardo. He had “star presence” from the moment he entered the makeup room in the morning.
Ricardo had had one of those storied Hollywood careers. Beginning in the heyday of the splashy M-G-M musicals starring the likes of Esther Williams, he became the leading Latin lover for a generation of moviegoers. His star undiminished, he was enjoying resurgent popularity with another generation as the star of the hit television series Fantasy Island. His was a uniquely long-lived career. Legends with this glowing luster oftentimes have a tendency toward the prima donna. They are accustomed to having their way. Ricardo was unique even in this regard.
STAR TREK II was being produced in the television division of Paramount rather than in the feature film unit, making the schedule much tighter than that of THE MOTION PICTURE. The hours were long and intense, but Ricardo toiled uncomplaining. In fact, when things got tense, he was the uplift on the set, always ready with an interesting anecdote to share or a hearty laugh for a lame set-side joke. He was a disciplined, professional, and vivacious star.
Most uniquely, however, there was a magnificent bigness about him as an actor. Ricardo felt he was there to serve the script. If an angle that favored another actor made sense, he deferred. If a scene needed to be tightened and his line of dialogue was slowing the action, he considered eliminating it. Actors usually come up with reasons why their dialogue shouldn’t be cut. But with Ricardo, with grand magnanimity, he would give up the line. He called it his “contribution” to making the scene work. Walter, who ha
d many scenes with him, would come off the set marveling.
“I can’t believe it. Ricardo Montalban, this legendary star, is so generous! He’s incredible!”
Ricardo was a big star in every sense. There was size to his presence. There was grandiloquence in his speech. And there was bigness in his spirit.
* * *
My anxiously awaited, hard-won promotion scene was coming up. How many times in my sleep had I mumbled my lines from this scene? How often in my waking hours did visions of a follow-up Captain Sulu role haunt me? The disclosure of Sulu’s advancement was a short moment in a larger scene, but to me, this was the payoff point for Sulu. This was what I had won with all my hard campaigning; I had to make the moment vital and alive.
We began rehearsing, and immediately a cold queasiness started to seep through me. Bill was breezing through his lines, telling me of my new commission as if it were only an aside . . . just an offhanded throwaway. I felt like asking, “That’s not the way you’re going to do it, are you?” But I bit my tongue. This was still a rehearsal.
The second rehearsal was even more indifferently played. Bill didn’t even look at me. I couldn’t play my joy, my elation, my sense of attainment against nothing.
“Bill, this is an important moment for Sulu. Can we have some eye contact?” I asked. He looked at me with the most innocent expression. “Of course, George,” he answered in a tone insinuating that I had made a patently obvious request.
In the third rehearsal, he gave me a quick, perfunctory glance in passing. Almost begrudging. His line reading was equally offhanded. I went to Nick and whispered my concern to him. “Don’t worry. I know how to fix it,” he assured me. And he called for the take.
When we shot the scene, Bill played it as he had rehearsed it, disinterested, murmuring some trivia about my captaincy, looking straight out into the void. There was no eye contact. No emotion. No relationship. Nothing. A few other takes followed. He played them as before. He wasn’t going to change. Nick called for the next setup. And we moved on.
I didn’t know which I felt more strongly, the crushing ache in my heart or the fury raging in the pit of my stomach. Bill’s giggling and bantering with the crew after the shot only inflamed the rage and the sting of impotence that burned inside me. Nick said he could “fix it.” But I knew he wasn’t a magician. I knew what could and couldn’t be done. I had a cold foreboding . . . the scene for which I had struggled so long, so doggedly, and with such great hope—was not usable. I was not surprised when I later learned that the scene was cut.
* * *
Working with Nick Meyer, however, was great, classy fun. He was a compact dynamo of energy, erudition, and effervescence. The smoldering, intense man I initially met, I discovered, was only one of the large cast of characters that inhabited his body.
There was, very obviously, the talented director. But a director is really a jack of all arts. He has to be a good storyteller. And Nick was a compelling raconteur. He regaled us with set-side tales as well as outspoken commentaries.
A director has to be a writer. And Nick was a published author of two best-selling novels, The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror. He had also written Target Practice, coauthored The Black Orchid, and been lauded with the Golden Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association.
A director also has to have a bit of the actor in him. And Nick was an energetic and multifaceted performer. At the drop of a cue, he could become Groucho Marx charging maniacally around the set brandishing his giant cigar with all the schticky verve of the great comedian himself. Or he could transform himself into a devastating comparative drama critic, reciting Hamlet, first as Laurence Olivier would, then reinterpreting the same speech as John Gielgud might. And he was dazzling as both.
When we were filming Spock’s funeral scene, he told me that the phrase “the undiscovered country” from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech was his title for this movie. I thought on it as I listened to Jimmy’s mournful piping of “Amazing Grace.” Death, “the undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns . . .” How apt and how artful, I thought.
Alas, that title died in the battle with the marketing department of Paramount. But Nick, I discovered, was a tenacious man. He wasn’t going to give up. He said he would find another movie to grant that title to. I decided I needed to be just as determined. I wasn’t giving up on my captaincy either.
* * *
We were right in the middle of a take when somebody charged onto the soundstage excitedly, and suddenly, people were rushing for the exit.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” I asked.
“Somebody said there’s a fire in the old New York street,” one of the crew said as we joined in the mad exodus.
We pushed out the small exit into the alleyway between soundstages and looked up at the slot of sky. Billowing black clouds of smoke churned up from the direction of the back lot.
“Oh my God! It’s a fire! The studio’s burning!” The hairdresser gasped in horror. There was alarm in everyone’s eyes.
“It’s all right, folks,” shouted the assistant director. “The fire department has been called. It will be under control soon. Please stay calm and return to work.” His voice was reassuring, and it was a relief to know that the back lot was all the way over on the far side of the studio. We milled around a while longer gaping at the ugly swells of smoke; but when the assistant shouted again, this time with more firmness than reassurance in his voice, the crowd started to move back in.
I loved that old back lot. It was nothing more than the false facade of a typical New York streetscape, only plaster and canvas and cheap lumber propped up by scaffolding—my brother, Henry, had “hmphed” at them—but to me, they were a wonderful part of our movie heritage. So much history took place on those streets; so much of our collective memories were recalled in those plaster stoops and painted canvas brick walls. One STAR TREK television episode, “A Piece of the Action,” was shot there. Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Sunset Boulevard was filmed there. So many Paramount memories were recorded on celluloid on that make-believe street. The studio back lot was as important a part of our Hollywood heritage as covered bridges were to New England or boat landings were to the communities along the Mississippi River. Now, all this was going up in that dirty black smoke, our memories consumed and churned up into the sky as charcoal bits and sooty fumes. After one final gaze, I turned back into the soundstage.
The crew and technicians were beginning to pound and bellow as the set roused back to life. The assistant directors were trying to restore some semblance of order on the set. The actors began reassembling. Then, something at once extraordinary and so very typical happened.
The soundstage door burst open, and a couple of people from the publicity department rushed in. They ran excitedly to Bill and then to Nick and went into an urgently conducted huddle. Quickly resolving the situation, the publicity people hurried off with Bill in tow. Nick announced that he would rehearse another scene while Bill was briefly excused from the set. I wasn’t involved in that scene, so I thought I’d jog over to the back lot to see how the fire department was controlling the fire.
I stepped out the stage door and looked up. The smoke was still murky but appeared somewhat less threatening now. Thank God! The fire department must be there. I started trotting across the lot with the other people hurrying toward the back lot. The smoke was thinner but still moiling. As I got closer, I could see licks of orange flame leap out through the churning smoke. Blackend scaffolding loomed up out of the conflagration as long streams of water were being poured into the now subsiding billows.
As I approached the fire area, I saw a boisterous horde of photographers snapping away. But rather than focusing on the fire, they seemed to be centered on something else. I peered over to look, and who should I see in the center of all this press attention but our very own firefighter, Bill Shatner, poised with a fire hose held heroically high.
; “Point your finger up toward the fire, Bill,” shouted an excited photographer. Jaws firmed, chest puffed out, with the hose in one hand, Bill courageously pointed with the other. Cameras snapped eagerly.
“Look this way with the hose, Bill,” yelled another. Bill boldly turned toward that photographer with firm determination in his eyes. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“Bill, move closer to the fire,” barked another. Bill edged a bit toward the fire. But the real firefighters would not allow an actor to get beyond a certain point of safety. Undaunted, Bill continued posing gallantly as the smoke churned behind him and the cameramen snapped away. After a few minutes, the publicity people shepherded him back into the car that had brought him over from the soundstage and drove off. I thought I’d better be getting back to the set myself. The fire seemed well under control.
That evening, as I was driving home from the studio, the news on the car radio was reporting a major fire on the Paramount Studio lot. Fortunately, it reported, Captain Kirk of STAR TREK leaped to the rescue from the set of the Starship Enterprise and single-handedly directed the firefight. I could already imagine the photos that would be illustrating this story in tomorrow morning’s newspapers. If it hadn’t been for Captain Kirk, the radio continued breathlessly, the fabled studio could well have been lost.
* * *
STAR TREK II was released with the subtitle The Wrath of Khan. After The Undiscovered Country was nixed, Paramount had set our title as The Vengeance of Khan. But 20th Century-Fox’s third Star Wars installment was coming out with the subtitle The Revenge of the Jedi. The two titles, directed at similar audiences, sounded too much alike. So Paramount again changed ours, this time, and finally, to The Wrath of Khan. By that time, of course, 20th Century-Fox had also changed their title to Return of the Jedi. Such are the capricious workings of fate in Hollywood.
