These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  Roddenberry not only changed Christine Ducheaux to Christine Chapel in “Little Girls” but also in his rewrite of “The Naked Time,” thereby establishing her as a recurring character. According to Herb Solow, when the network executives got their first glimpse of Nurse Chapel, NBC’s Jerry Stanley yodeled, “Well, well -- look who’s back.” (161-3)

  Robert Justman was not fond of the character of Chapel. At first, he blamed Barrett, believing her performance was at fault. Later, he realized that his problems had to do entirely with the writing. He explained, “Nurse Chapel was a wimpy, badly written, an ill-conceived character. In ‘The Naked Time,’ all she did was stand around and pine for Mister Spock, much the same as Yeoman Rand did for Captain Kirk. And, in ‘Little Girls,’ Nurse Chapel pined for her fiancé, mad scientist Dr. Korby.” (94-8)

  Even Barrett had issues with the character. She said, “I’ve never been a real aficionado of Nurse Chapel. I figured she was kind of weak and namby-pamby.” (10-3)

  Other changes Roddenberry made to the script involved the Third Act break -- the hook right before fading down and going to a commercial, often a cliff-hanger. Of this, he wrote Justman:

  You may note that the cliff hanger in the third act is a cliff hanger. You’re welcome. (GR9-6)

  Roddenberry had written the scene where Kirk hangs by his fingertips, dangling into the mouth of a bottomless pit, as the monstrous Ruk glares down.

  Roddenberry continued to send in new pages, even as the episode filmed, telling Justman:

  Please note the following changes in the script affecting set items, not properly annotated on blue and pink pages because of late hour. Or maybe even green pages, I’m not sure at this moment. (GR9-6)

  Gene Roddenberry had, without credit, rewritten nearly every script to film so far. The little joke in his last memo would soon be no joke at all. He was tired -- the type of tired that a good night’s sleep will not take care of.

  Pre-Production

  July 20-22 and July 25-28, 1966 (6 ½ days prep).

  Many of the recurring cast members had to sit this one out due to budget constraints. Before a single frame of film was shot, Justman categorized this episode as “intricate” and “difficult,” two of the reasons why, as a favor to him and Roddenberry, director James Goldstone returned to Star Trek.

  Michael Strong as Dr. Roger Korby

  Goldstone, who directed the second pilot but had no desire to be associated with such a demanding series on a recurring basis, later said, “I got a panic call from Bobby Justman that whatever plans they had for the episode had turned into a big problem. Would I please help them out?... Largely out of affection for Gene and other people involved, I read the script. It was not like anything else I’d done, and it was not like the pilot in any way.” (75-3)

  Michael Strong, cast to play the tragic Dr. Korby, was 41. He was well acquainted with melodrama -from 1957 through 1959, he was a regular on the daytime soap The Edge of Night and then in 1964 had a recurring role on Peyton Place. He worked often all around the dial as a lead guest player, with multiple appearances on series such as The Defenders and The Naked City. He’d also appeared in an episode of The Lieutenant where he made an impression on Roddenberry and Joe D’Agosta. In his future: a role in Vanished, a 1971 made-for-TV thriller, starring William Shatner.

  Shatner with Sherry Jackson in NBC publicity photo (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Sherry Jackson, as Andrea, began working in front of the camera at age six. By the time she hit the ripe old age of seven, she had a recurring role as little Suzie Kettle in the popular Ma and Pa Kettle film series. Three years on at 10 she began a half-decade stint on The Danny Thomas Show as daughter Terry. Guest spots on TV shows such as 77 Sunset Strip, Lost in Space, and The Twilight Zone followed. By the mid-1960s, she had blossomed and steamier roles were coming her way.

  Joe D’Agosta met Jackson when he booked her for an episode of The Lieutenant. With her memorable 36-22-35 measurements, D’Agosta immediately thought to cast her here as Andrea, and later said, “I was madly in love with her. I never saw a figure like that in my life. And such a sweet face. I don’t know why she wasn’t a huge star, because she was so darling.” (43-4)

  Jackson worked with Shatner again, in his 1975 series Barbary Coast.

  Ted Cassidy as Lurch in The Addams Family (ABC publicity photo)

  Ted Cassidy would be Ruk. Cassidy made his debut in front of the cameras in 1964 with two words: “You rang?” As Lurch, for TV’s The Addams Family, the six-foot-nine former college basketball player gained national fame with those two syllables. When the series folded, Cassidy was immediately tapped to play a variety of off-beat and intimidating characters, including the slave to “The Thief from Outer Space” on Lost in Space. The Thief was none other than future Star Trek guest star Malachi Throne.

  It was Robert Justman’s idea to dress Cassidy in the long-flowing, heavily-padded outfit he wore. His memo on the subject stated:

  I still feel he [Ruk] should not be clad in a flesh-tight garment. A more voluminous getup will allow us to increase his size. (RJ9-3)

  During the filming of this episode, Cassidy took time to provide the voice of the Bad Balok for “The Corbomite Maneuver.” He would return to do the off-camera hissing for the Gorn in “Arena,” and Roddenberry would cast Cassidy again, along with other Star Trek veterans, in a pair of 1970s pilots he wrote and produced: Genesis II and Planet Earth.

  Majel Barrett may not have cared for the character of Chapel but her talents shine through with this performance, just as they did when she played Number One in “The Cage.”

  There were only three episodes of Star Trek to not feature Dr. McCoy. This was the first. The other two are “The Menagerie, Part 2” and “Errand of Mercy.”

  “I originally signed for seven out of 13 episodes,” Kelley told TV Star Parade in 1967, “but Dr. McCoy was so popular they left him in and made me a regular. I just got lucky. The mail began to show a trend and my part was broadened.” (98-11)

  Stage 10 -- the planet stage -- needed substantial new set designs to create the caverns and the chambers to the underground complex seen in this episode. Dorothy Fontana recalled, “Matt Jefferies used to say that every week he had to build a new planet on Stage 10. It was true. Most of the time you really had to do some building in there and drag in dirt and drag out dirt, put down floors, and it really was a major thing just to design it, to build it and to then decorate it.” (64-2)

  Production Diary

  Filmed July 28 (1/2 day) & 29, and August 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 & 9 (1/2 day), 1966

  (Planned as 6 day production, finishing 2 days over; total cost: $211,061).

  One can only wonder (and no one is talking) about the fashioning of the prop, and how it got past the censors

  Thursday, July 28, 1966, began a week where comedian Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose, and South Africa banned Beatles records due to John Lennon’s infamous Jesus Christ statement. Yesterday … and Today by The Beatles, nonetheless, was the top selling album. In the Bible Belt, some were buying the record just to burn it. “Wild Thing,” by The Troggs, was the most played song on U.S. radio stations. Batman was not only a hit on TV but in the movie house where its big screen version, also starring Adam West and Burt ward, was now the top box office attraction. Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, the previous week’s No. 1 movie, came in second. Montgomery Clift, one of the top movie stars of the late 1940s and 1950s died of a heart attack. He was only 45. U.S. warplanes started bombing the demilitarized zone in Vietnam. And at Desilu Studios the Star Trek cast and crew embarked on a war of their own, called “What are Little Girls Made Of?”

  Filming began immediately after lunch at 1:30 p.m., just as Gene Roddenberry was dropping his latest rewrite on Bob Justman’s desk. Vincent McEveety had cast and crew finishing “Balance of Terror” in the morning, buying Roddenberry time to make his last-minute script changes. Now it was James Goldstone’s turn to call the shots.

  T
o help ease into what was expected to be a horrendous production, Goldstone spent this first day on Stage 9, filming the bridge. His last camera shot was taken at 7 p.m.

  Day 2, Friday. More work on the bridge, followed by a move to the ship’s corridors, then Kirk’s quarters, and ending in the transporter room. The final shot here was Kirk and Christine Chapel beaming away to the planet. And all of this was done by 11:50 a.m.

  While the cast took an early lunch, the production crew made the move to Stage 10 for what Matt Jefferies had envisioned as the caverns of Exo III. In an interview for fanzine Inside Star Trek, from 1968, while Jefferies was still building sets for the series, he said, “‘What Are Little Girls Made Of?’ was probably one of the toughest. It was a big set requiring a lot of tunnels and even a precipice of what was supposed to be rock, always a difficult material to reproduce.”

  Ted Cassidy (Ruk) joined the production this day as Goldstone filmed the scenes in the entranceway to the caverns -- that beam-down spot where Kirk loses his first red-shirted crewman, beginning a tradition on Star Trek of “wear red, you’re dead.” As the day progressed, filming pushed deeper into the cavernous sets, to the point where a second red-shirted crewman dies, thrown into a “bottomless” crevasse by Ruk.

  Goldstone was a full day behind when he stopped filming at 7:04, more than 30 minutes into overtime.

  Over the weekend, while cast and crew rested, Gene Roddenberry continued working, turning in another set of revised pages on Saturday, with more on Sunday and more still on Monday.

  Day 3. Shatner and Barrett in the caverns Matt Jefferies built on Stage 10 (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Day 3, Monday. At 8 a.m., work resumed on Stage 10. Kirk tumbled into the mouth of a bottomless pit for that cliffhanger Roddenberry was so pleased with. Shatner did the stunt himself, hanging from a makeshift ledge. The crevasse, of course, wasn’t bottomless; mattresses lined the stage floor several feet below the star in case he lost his grip. Work stopped a little past 7 p.m.

  Day 4, Tuesday, began four days of filming on a set described as “Korby’s study.” Michael Strong and Sherry Jackson joined the production for the first of three-and-a-half days on set in Dr. Korby’s underground study. They, as well as the other cast members, arrived that morning to find yet more script revisions. Roddenberry had turned in his final changes this day, both tightening and eliminating dialogue in an effort to help Goldstone catch up.

  Untouched film with Shatner’s body double (on right) before split screen effect (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Sherry Jackson, recalling the challenges of being a sexy android, said, “To play that role, I had to really go within myself and say ‘I’m half real and I’m half not real, but I have to appear real until a certain point in the story.’ Each little nuance was very, very planned to create the role where I was slowly becoming human -- but not really knowing, and being confused. I worked hard in developing that character.” (90)

  Rehearsal with director James Goldstone (on right), running lines with Shatner

  William Theiss also worked hard in developing Jackson’s costume. She said, “Bill Theiss is a fantastic costumer. He came up with this concept of doing this crisscross deal, which meant I could not wear a bra because it would show in the back.” (90)

  At this time on network television, a woman could display a certain amount of cleavage in the front but no part of the breast could be seen from the side or the underneath without fabric covering it. Jackson, with amused wonderment, said, “They had a censorship person on the set every day to make sure there was no side cleavage.” (90)

  And the composite shot, combining two separate camera takes of two Shatners (see “The Enemy Within” to read how this trick was achieved in 1966)

  Bill Theiss said, “I was prepared for and eagerly anticipated the storm over Sherry Jackson’s costume.... There was a lot of noise and indignation about it at the time.” (172-1 + 172-3)

  To pacify the network Executive in Charge of Cleavage, Theiss used double-sided tape under the edges of the crisscrossing top to make certain that neither of Jackson’s breasts peeked through. Taped up tight and under the watchful eye of NBC, Jackson strove to deliver the performance to which she had given so much thought. Of her acting, she admitted, “To overcome my costume was the real challenge.” (90)

  D’Agosta said, “I don’t know if she was a great actress or not, but who cared? I just remember she was almost like a Playboy kind of interest, as Hugh Hefner would say, ‘It’s never just about the body, it’s always more about the face.’ But, yeah, of course the costume that Bill Theiss made for her didn’t hurt.” (43-4)

  By Friday, the seventh day of filming, with the company now in the underground corridors and into the “sleeping chamber,” Goldstone was a day and a half behind.

  All of Day 8 was spent on the sleeping chamber set, where Captain Kirk gets to kiss the first of many space babes (the attempted rape of Yeoman Rand by the Evil Kirk notwithstanding).

  Day 9. Celebrating the end of production. Note the penny-loafers on Shatner (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  An unprecedented ninth day of filming (eight full days, actually, spread over nine) was needed for the interior laboratory where Korby uses his android-making machine on Kirk. The NBC representative from Broadcast Standards stayed close by; this was the day Shatner lay on the spinning platform nearly naked, only his groin area covered by a part of the machinery. For this, as it had happened during the filming of “The Corbomite Maneuver,” Shatner was subjected to a close shave. Sherry Jackson confided, “Mr. Roddenberry felt that Captain Kirk wouldn’t be hairy.” (90)

  Jackson said that Shatner was not happy but remained professional and surrendered himself to the barber’s razor.

  Production wrapped at 12:25 p.m. Lunch was taken, followed by a move to Stage 9 to begin filming “Dagger of the Mind” under the direction of Vincent McEveety.

  The filming of “Little Girls” took eight full days spread over nine and, including weekends, spanned a total of 13. No other episode in the series (excepting the pilot film) took as long. Goldstone was not blamed for the extra time or the cost overruns. Robert Justman’s notes from the time of the production cited the problem as being a “bad script” which “GR rewrote as it was shot.”

  Even after production wrapped, the filming was not over. On September 1, as “Little Girls” was edited, Justman wrote to Greg Peters:

  We need an INSERT of Dr. Korby’s body and Andrea’s body in close embrace and the phaser pistol being fired. This means we shall have to get someone to fit into Dr. Korby’s outfit and a girl to fit into Andrea’s outfit.... It is important for us to get this shot, so that we can get this film together. (RJ9-4)

  “This shot” was the moment when Korby pulls Andrea close, kisses her deeply and, during this embrace, presses on the trigger of the phaser weapon she holds between them. In the shot Goldstone had taken, as scripted, Korby does not press the trigger. The phaser fires accidentally when their bodies press together. Once again, an essential element in making this story pay off was an afterthought.

  The close-up was needed ASAP, but the Star Trek sets had gone dark the day before and would stay that way for another two weeks during the Labor Day hiatus. Greg Peters anxiously waited until September 13, the first day of production on “The Conscience of the King,” to get the vital two-second shot. Frank da Vinci, a background player in 44 episodes of Star Trek including the episode filming that day, wore Korby’s outfit. Jeannie Malone, a bit player who appeared in the background of numerous Star Treks, usually as a shapely Yeoman on the bridge, was the slender woman who squeezed into Andrea’s getup.

  Post-Production

  August 10 through October 10, 1966. Music scored on September 20, 1966.

  Frank Keller briefly joined the staff as the head of a fourth editing team. To help Star Trek catch up on its deliveries, Herb Solow overrode Desilu Post Production chief Bill Heath and allowed Justman, as a temporary emergency measure, to bring in
the extra help.

  In the cutting room, Keller was a big gun. Among his earlier credits were the pre-Emma Peel Avengers and a pair of Frank Sinatra movies: Come Blow Your Horn and Pocketful of Miracles, the latter earning him an Eddie nomination from the Film Editors Guild. Of his work here, the most impressive moment is the splicing involved in the sequence of shots that depict the spinning android-making machine.

  The rewriting which continued through the production also continued through post-production. Additional Captain’s Log entries and “wild track lines” -- dialogue that could be inserted into an audio track without requiring the addition of any new video material -- were added into several pages of the script, dated September 12. This is why Majel Barrett’s voice, when Chapel tells the android Kirk to go ahead and eat his lunch, doesn’t quite match in tone to her other lines from this scene, and why we only see her from the back when she says it. This line, along with a handful of others, was “looped” in during post.

  Fred Steiner had a busy day on September 20, 1966 recording the scores for three episodes: “The Corbomite Maneuver,” “Balance of Terror” and this, his fifth Star Trek assignment. “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” was actually considered to be a partial score, since Steiner utilized snatches of musical themes written by Alexander Courage. Of the new material, the charming “Andrea’s Theme” would be successfully reused in “This Side of Paradise,” while the menacing Ruk music, with its effective use of kettle drums, returned to great effect during moments of danger in many future episodes.

  The Westheimer Company, with its second Star Trek assignment, tackled the optical effects. All views of the Enterprise and the planet as seen from space were stock shots. Transporter effects, matte shots and phaser blasts made up a good share of the new work. The biggest single effect, however, was a near-naked Kirk spinning on the android-making wheel. The tab for post effects came to $6,848.