These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  Also in 1965, Kelley was in Marriage on the Rocks, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Deborah Kerr. He got sixth billing and the privilege to work alongside screen legend Bette Davis in 1964’s Where Love Has Gone. The critic for Variety said, “DeForest Kelley impresses as an unscrupulous art critic.” He was also making a second pilot film for Gene Roddenberry. Steve Ihnat, later to guest star in Star Trek, had the lead in this one, supported by Kelley and Grace Lee Whitney, also to go to Star Trek. A two-hour TV movie was produced, which later aired on NBC after the decision was made not to go to series. According to Roddenberry, who always pictured Kelley as the doctor for the U.S.S. Enterprise, the victory to come from “Police Story” was how it changed NBC’s perception of the actor. Once the network, the studio, and his Star Trek colleagues got a look at the former heavy in the role as a doctor-like police coroner, they finally agreed he would make a good fit for McCoy.

  Kelley told Ruth Berman, from the set of Star Trek, for the fanzine Inside Star Trek, “I was never a science fiction buff, although one of my very favorite shows was The Twilight Zone. I was an avid fan... but, at the time, it seemed that I couldn’t connect with it.... I had been mostly involved in westerns, not as a choice, but something I fell into, in playing ‘heavies.’ It was making me a very comfortable living, and I had just about figured, ‘Well, this is the way I’m going to go.’” (98-3)

  Shatner said, “I remember being in the office at Star Trek with De and Bob Justman that first day. I recognized him from Raintree County, and I was an admirer of his work.” (156-6)

  Nimoy said, “I remember meeting him and was delighted because I knew his work and I knew the role he was going to play and I felt very good about it. I thought he was a very good choice.” (128-9)

  Doohan said, “I was very glad that Gene brought DeForest on board. In terms of acting... DeForest was far superior to the man who played the doctor in the [second] pilot.” (52-6)

  Kelley, 46 at the time, was guaranteed only seven episodes of Star Trek’s initial order of 16, at $850 each. He recalled telling this to his wife. Carolyn remained encouraging and pointed out that those seven shows would pay the mortgage for a couple months. Kelley responded, “I just hope it goes seven.” (98-1)

  Grace Lee Whitney came on board as Janice Rand, the Captain’s Yeoman. She was 35. A former stage dancer with more than three dozen credits in television and film, she had recently played a lead role in “Controlled Experiment,” the only comedy episode produced for The Outer Limits. Whitney first met Roddenberry on The Lieutenant. Charmed by the pretty blonde, he cast her as the female lead in “Police Story.” And that led to Star Trek.

  “When Gene beamed me aboard, I was thrilled,” Whitney said much later. “I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but my life had just taken a sharp turn in a totally new direction.” (183-2)

  The sharp turn brought a fair amount of rumors.

  Whitney in pilot for Jeffrey Hunter’s series, Temple Houston (1963, Warner Bros.)

  “The suggestion that Gene Roddenberry put me in Star Trek because of a ‘previous personal relationship’ is flatly false,” Whitney insisted. “I never had a romantic relationship with Gene Roddenberry before Star Trek, during Star Trek, or after Star Trek. Did Gene make passes at me? You better believe he did! Passes, innuendoes, double-entendres, the whole nine yards. But I wanted to keep our relationship on a professional basis.” (183-2)

  Whitney remembered Roddenberry’s description of Janice Rand. She would be as Gunsmoke’s Miss Kitty was to Matt Dillon. The Marshal could always talk his problems over with his favorite saloon girl; she knew him better than anyone else. That was the relationship Roddenberry wanted Rand and Kirk to have. The Captain could confide in her, be warmed by her and secretly love her. But he would never openly admit his deeper feelings, not even to himself. Roddenberry told her, “Because of your duty, you can never openly express your attraction toward him. There will always be an undercurrent of suppressed sexuality between you that will come out in very subtle ways. You’re to be as beautiful as you can be and as efficient as you can be, and you are to love the captain.” (183-2)

  Whitney saw a contradiction with the instructions Roddenberry gave her. She was to be as beautiful as she could be and bring forward an undercurrent of sexuality, but do so while wearing a somewhat loose gold turtleneck uniform top and black pants -- as the women onboard the Enterprise had in both pilots, and as she was dressed for all the early publicity photos. She said, “I told Gene, ‘You’re covering up my best part -- my dancers’ legs! Rand should wear a skirt -- a short one!’ He loved the idea, but it wasn’t his idea, or Bill Theiss’ idea, although it was their idea as to how short that short skirt turned out. Nichelle used to let her skirt sneak up a bit while she sat at the communications station. That was no accident. She wasn’t going to be ‘out-legged’ by me.” (183-6)

  Whitney’s contract promised her seven out of the first 16, at $750 each.

  James Montgomery Doohan, at 46 in 1966, enjoyed working as an actor, but did not define himself or his life by his many guest performances. For the June 1968 issue of TV Star Parade, Doohan told writer Roger Elwood, “Acting can be an escape from life for some individuals but not for me. I was never attracted to acting until after the war. I was going to be a dentist in fact.” (52-8)

  James Doohan in “Hail to the Chief” on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964, 20th Century Fox)

  Doohan’s father had worked as a dentist, as well as a pharmacist and veterinarian. But Doohan’s decision to follow in his father’s professional footsteps changed when he realized his talents lay elsewhere. He said, “One night, I heard a radio broadcast and I told myself I could do as well as any of the people in it. So my determination grew from that moment on. However, for some, acting is an escape from the problems of reality into the fantasy world of a make-believe character.” (52-8)

  Not for Doohan; he had never been one to seek escape. His nature was to hit the challenges of life head on. One such challenge came in the form of the Second World War, when Doohan was only 18. He said, “I volunteered for the Army. Even though I was on the young side, I was accepted and began as a gunner in the artillery section, advancing to captain [in the Royal Canadian Artillery]…. I was the first guy to hit the beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. It was at 11:30 at night. I was in charge of the fifth boat of my company. There I was, racing ashore -- only to be wounded very badly, at least badly enough to be sent back to England and hospitalized.” (52-8)

  Doohan had been sprayed by bullets from a German machine gun. He’d been hit four times in the leg, as well as having the middle finger of his right hand shot off. A potential lethal hit to the chest was deflected by a metal cigarette case in his shirt pocket, a life-saving gift from his brother.

  Doohan did not let these wounds keep him from the job at hand. He returned to serving the war effort as an observation pilot, stationed out of Cambridge, England.

  Those who knew Doohan were not only struck by his daring, but by his ethics and inherent kindness. His nature is well represented in a story he told writer Roger Elwood regarding his upbringing in British Columbia, Canada. He said, “One of the greatest things I recall was the absolute freedom, especially the freedom I had, of running with my dogs, just going off and being with them and the bright clear sky and the pure air. It was marvelous, simply unforgettable!... I had to leave the dogs and the horses behind. That was a large part of the reason why I felt so low and despondent. They were my companions; my friends.” (52-8)

  Leslie Parrish, who worked with Doohan in the Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais,” said, “Jimmy Doohan was a truly beautiful soul, very much like the character everyone loved in Star Trek -- warm, caring, loyal, devoted! My relationship with him in the show is still with me: we had very warm feelings for each other and I saw that Scotty was ready to put his life on the line to defend me when I came under the spell of Apollo [in the Star Trek story]. It’s impossible not to lo
ve a man like that…. Ah -- what a sweetie he was!!!” (134a)

  After the war, Doohan studied acting during a two-year scholarship to New York’s famed Neighborhood Playhouse, whose alumni included Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Grace Kelly and, also Star Trek bound, Walter Koenig. Doohan quickly gained a reputation for his ability to tackle different dialects, including that of a Scotsman.

  Doohan married in 1949, at age 29, to Janet Young. They had four children during their 15-year marriage, which ended one year shy of his first Star Trek.

  Doohan had created the character of Montgomery Scott, a name he chose, for “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” He was happy that the pilot had sold and said, “I thought, ‘Oh great, I have a running job here.’” (52-1)

  Leslie Parrish said, “Over the years, as I watched casting choices, I was amazed at casting directors’ abilities to read character. They nailed Scotty with Jimmy! Can you think of one other man who could have played that role believably with such childlike innocence and genuine love for his spaceship and his captain and crew?” (134a)

  If Doohan hadn’t been willing to stand up to life’s challenges, however, Scotty never would have made it back into space. The contract was for nine shows, but a few days after signing, he received a letter from Gene Roddenberry. In his memoirs, Beam Me Up, Scotty, Doohan recalled it reading, “Thanks very much, but we don’t really think we’re going to need an engineer.” (52-1)

  Roddenberry was nowhere near that crass, but the end result would have been the same. The actual letter from April 11, 1966 read:

  Dear Jim: As you probably know, Star Trek will be on the air this coming September. Due to changes in format, budget structure and character concepts, we cannot pick up a number of options, including yours. But we do hope that “Engineering Officer Scott” will reappear in future stories and hope we will be fortunate enough to find you interested and available at that time. Let me thank you for your important contribution in the making of the Star Trek pilot. As mentioned many times before, I value your talent and ability highly and it will always be a particular pleasure for me when we are able to work together.

  Doohan was remarkably busy making the rounds as a guest performer. He didn’t need Star Trek. But he wanted it.

  “There’s a danger [in doing a series] in that you can get typed,” Doohan said. “If the show hits and the role is [that] noticeable, they may never again see you as being anyone other than that one character…. Alright, but at the same time you can only count on so many years at finding guest work. Sooner or later that runs its course. So it comes down to whether or not the role in a series is worth the gamble. I saw the potential of science fiction, if it was done properly, and I saw the potential of this role -- the engineer; the Scotsman. I felt it was worth fighting for. And any good Scotsman is not afraid of a proper fight.” (52)

  Doohan called his agent, who went to Roddenberry and Solow. A compromise was made. Doohan was given a new contract for five out of 13 shows, with a salary of $850 each.

  With this, there was only one final series regular to lock in.

  George Takei had just turned 29. His character was changed from astrophysicist to helmsman. According to Takei, Roddenberry said the network people liked the idea of an interracial cast and had expressed interest in making Sulu more visible. His contract also promised seven of the first 16. His pay rate: $600 per episode.

  Star Trek had an order for 16 episodes. One of these, the second pilot, was in the can. Fifteen to go.

  The scripts for “The Omega Glory” and “Mudd’s Women,” ST-3 and 4, respectively, were on hand. ST-3, Roddenberry’s script, at the insistence of Stan Robertson, was put aside in hopes of finding better material. Roddenberry received his first slap in the face from the man he had approved to be NBC’s production manager to Star Trek.

  The search for the better material began. A screening of the second pilot was arranged at Desilu for March 7, 1966, with six more screenings to follow. Members of the Writers Guild were invited. Of those who showed up, only a handful stayed until the end. Freelance writers of this time were looking for a few weeks’ work for a few thousand dollars, not something that would entail a crash course about life in a whole new universe. Every writer in town knew how to tell stories about cops, doctors and cowboys. Something like Star Trek required far more work.

  “The problem is most writers have no scientific background whatsoever,” said Stephen Kandel. “They were English majors; they never took physics, so science fiction scared them. The language scared them. The concept scared them. Gene Roddenberry scared them. He was talking about a series that accepted the fact that interstellar space is essentially airless, but distances are really substantial, that other cultures can truly be alien, that the kind of life you meet is modified by planetary distances. That was very daunting to a lot of writers.” (95-1)

  But some writers like a challenge. A few stepped forward, with a few more on each of the subsequent screening days. Some were science fiction authors with little or no experience in television. For them, Star Trek was a new toy to play with. Some were TV writers looking for a quick job and a fast buck, ignorant as to how much work writing for Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek would be. Only a few of the interested writers had a background in both science fiction and screenwriting, and shows like Lost in Space could hardly prepare them for Star Trek. Nor could TV anthologies like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, where the writers were free to dream up their own characters and not be restricted by the rules of someone else’s universe.

  Roddenberry was gambling with each story assignment he gave out. He knew many would not make the cut, so during March and April, to satisfy the order for 16 scripts, he assigned 21 story treatments.

  The job now was to build Disneyland on a County Fair budget. The sets for the Enterprise had to be relocated to Desilu Hollywood where the interior of the starship, including the elaborate bridge set, was reassembled on Gower Street Stage 9. With Jim Rugg now a part of the team, each “wild” section of the bridge was wired separately. This way, when the bridge was pulled apart to allow for camera movement, all the panels and display screens would still blink and flash.

  Sickbay received a makeover, as well. Jefferies, with Rugg’s help, outfitted each bed with a medical monitoring device. The briefing room, the transporter room, the ship’s corridors and the Captain’s quarters were also given a sprucing up. And there would be a new set for engineering, although it wouldn’t come about until a specific episode called for it (“The Enemy Within”).

  Star Trek fan Kay Anderson, the editor of ST-Phile, one of the earliest fanzines, was given a tour of Desilu stages 9 and 10. She shared her observations in a pair of 1968 articles, describing how Stage 9 was entered by “negotiating a tangle of bicycles and tugging open a large, thick, heavy door equipped with the sort of handle one sees on meat lockers.” Inside, Anderson observed that the sickbay sets were closest to the front door. Beyond that, “the enormous area” seemed “like a cave.” The ceiling was crisscrossed with “beams and girders, conduits and air conditioner ducts, and dripping stalactites of chains suspending lights and positioning the walls of the sets.” The walls of the building were thickly insulated and curtains of sound-deadening material also hung from the ceiling, causing any noise from within to have “a curiously remote, muffled quality.” The floor of the “cavernous room” was cluttered with sets, props, equipment and people. Once past sickbay, Anderson wandered down a corridor -- the hallways of the Enterprise -- which led to the other sets, and also provided easy access to the entire complex and the makeup and dressing rooms. Just past the lower part of the “Jefferies tube” – named after Matt Jefferies -- the corridor ended and gave way to the engineering set.

  Stage 9, Season One layout:

  Ship’s corridors run bottom center to middle left.

  Stacked left of corridor, from bottom: sickbay, exam room/McCoy’s office, the brig and the elevator.

&
nbsp; To the right, bottom up: transporter room, side corridor, briefing room, Captain’s quarters, guest quarters, side corridor, and engineering.

  The bridge is top right. Note the indoor dressing trailers, upper left.

  Makeup room is bottom left.

  (Courtesy of Bob Olsen and Gerald Gurian)

  “They had a thing about the size of a car port that was basically the engineering section,” said George Clayton Johnson, who visited the stages when writing for the series. “It was all artificially foreshortened in layers so that, if you stood in front of it and looked into it, you got an optical illusion of looking down through a vast area. But it was all a forced perspective. It didn’t take up a lot of space, but it was an incredible thing to look at.” (93-1)

  Bottom left of production still reveals a wedge of the bridge has been removed to make room for the camera setup (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  As for the bridge, Anderson described it as, “A large set, circular when completely assembled, cut into wedges like slices of a pie.” (2a)

  “It was very, very weird,” said George Clayton Johnson. “They had it all on wheels so that they could take sections out like a segment of pie. They could whip out a wall and stick a camera in there and shoot the bridge. Then they would put that wall back in place and take another segment of the pie out and reposition the camera. So, they were able to move the cameras pretty freely because they had made the bridge in six or eight fairly large chunks that were light enough to move and that would clamp back together. It was really quite ingenious to watch.” (93-1)