These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  Roddenberry offered Milkis a staff position to oversee all the effects that were so desperately needed. If he accepted, Milkis would receive the non-descriptive credit of Assistant to the Producer. He was reluctant. He was a film editor, not a post-production supervisor, and argued that he did not know how to manage people and supervise labs. Roddenberry’s words were, “Yes, you do. You do know how to do it.” (119-1)

  Milkis, going where no editor had gone before, began his new job the next day.

  “We were so under the gun,” Milkis explained. “We worked out a routine of going to four different optical houses so that we could spread the work out and I was able to push each house to get the work done.” (119-1)

  The four competitors, now colleagues, were Film Effects of Hollywood, The Westheimer Company, Cinema Research, and The Howard Anderson Company. The Andersons and Linwood Dunn’s Film Effects of Hollywood, the only two to handle the 11- foot, 2-inch Enterprise model, shared elements with each other and with the other two houses, allowing all to complete their Star Trek assignments. The house that provided the most new optical effects to an episode was given the screen credit. It was an unprecedented collaboration effort.

  Robert Justman said, “Without Eddie Milkis we couldn’t have gotten it done. He came along at just the right time. It was Gene and myself doing the show, and there was no staff. There was nothing. We were physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted by the time we were halfway through the first season.” (94-17)

  “The Man Trap” was finally delivered to NBC on August 29, 1966. The network quickly arranged a test screening and was pleased by the results. The programmers were assured they had chosen well for an episode to debut the series.

  That same day, Fred Steiner was sent into the recording studio to lead an orchestra and provide the music for “Charlie X” -- the second regular episode to be scored and, two weeks later, to air.

  Two days after that, Alexander Courage returned to score “The Naked Time,” the fourth Star Trek to air, following the telecast of the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which NBC hadn’t wanted to use due to casting and other changes made since it filmed in 1965. There was little choice now -- either the second pilot would air as the third episode or Star Trek would be missing from the schedule that night.

  Scripts need conflict; writers don’t.

  Roddenberry and his team breathed a momentary sigh of relief. Star Trek would make its first four air dates. But the series was still seriously behind schedule and way over budget, and costs had just gone up with the addition of the new staff member. Adding further complications, the scripts for “Shore Leave” and “The City on the Edge of Forever” were far overdue. Renowned science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon was at work on the first. The equally renowned (and notorious) Harlan Ellison was laboring over the second. Both men, while immensely talented, were not delivering pages at the speed Star Trek needed.

  Another problem: John D.F. Black wanted out. The Star Trek associate producer and script editor, and his now-wife and then-secretary, Mary Black, told their side of the Roddenberry/Black fallout during interviews for this book. Black had given other interviews over the years and the message was consistent -- his four-month stay at Star Trek from mid-April to mid-August 1966 was a near-hellish experience.

  Black had grown more disenchanted each week, believing Roddenberry’s rewrites were damaging to many of the scripts. Black admired writers such as Jerry Sohl, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, and Robert Bloch. He felt Roddenberry displayed less talent than these men and should not be changing their words. Examination of the various drafts of the scripts for these episodes gives indication that some changes were for the better, some perhaps not, but, generally, it was more so a case of personal taste. Regardless, Black had other issues beyond the caliber of the rewriting. He later said, “I realized that there was no way that I could stay there. I gave the writers my word that they would get to do all their changes first, before we ever got to it. Because GR told me I could say that. And then he changed everybody’s scripts. There wasn’t a script he didn’t screw with -- mine, Bob’s, Richard’s, George’s, every script. And every time he did it, it became more and more clear to me that he was making my word bad. Every time I said to a writer, ‘Hey, guy, you get to do it; this is a show for a writer; this is a writer’s show,’ he made my word bad. I was dealing with great writers, too -- Harlan Ellison, Ted Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, George C. Johnson, Bob Bloch. It made no sense.” (17)

  There were other problems. Mary Black said, “John and I put in long hours. Working until two in the morning was not unusual, because John would get caught on the set, and this and that, and any writing work had to be squeezed in. There was this one time where we had worked incredibly late -- it was at least two o’clock in the morning, it may have even been four o’clock. And then I drove home to the Valley, and then I got back at nine to start another day, and the whole time I was making that drive back to the studio, I was thinking, ‘I hate you, Gene Roddenberry. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’ And, I swear to God, I got back into the office and I was walking along the hall and G.R. was coming in the other direction and he said, ‘Good morning, Mary. How are you?’ And I smiled and I said, ‘I’m fine.’ And then I thought, ‘What the hell?’ But that’s just what happened. I had to allow myself to think those thoughts, to say those words in my head, in order to face another day.” (17a)

  The straw that broke the camel’s back, and Black’s spirit, was when “GR” rewrote “The Naked Time.” This was Black’s baby, his first -- and only produced -- original script for the series. Being so closely involved with Star Trek and entrusted to rewrite other writers’ scripts such as “Mudd’s Women” and “Miri,” Black believed he would be spared having his material reworked by Roddenberry.

  “I could fight for the other writers,” Black said, “and I always did. I’d go into G.R.’s office and sit across from him and tell him how I thought he had screwed someone’s script up. Sometimes he’d listen, sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes these meetings would last half-an-hour, sometimes for hours at a time. But he wasn’t going to have that kind of a conversation with me over my script. He just changed it.” (17)

  Mary Black said, “Toward the end, the tension over the rewrites was filling the air. So, a few weeks before the exit, John and I had a conversation and decided that we were going to ask for the moon if we were to stay. We wanted Bob Justman’s office, with the bathroom, we wanted a written promise from G.R. that he wouldn’t do any rewriting unless such’n’such, we wanted a very inflated salary. I can’t remember all of the goodies we asked for, but there were a lot.” (17a)

  John Black said, “We were prepared to say ‘yes’ if they were willing to give us the moon. Then we would stay. But we didn’t expect them to, and they didn’t. So it was a happy exit.” (17)

  John D.F. Black and Robert Justman – a pleasant exit (Courtesy of Mary Black)

  Black’s work for Star Trek ended with a rewrite on the “Miri” script and a first draft of the envelope script for “The Cage,” allowing the pilot film to be repurposed to reflect the new cast members and other changes (see “The Menagerie”). Ironically, Black’s title for his version of that script was “From the First Day to the Last.” Both were delivered August 12. Black’s contract expired two days later on a Sunday.

  Mary Black said, “One of us was quoted as saying that we opened a bottle of champagne that last day [Friday, August 10]. It was actually two bottles. That was great fun, because the usual inside staff was there – G.R., Majel, Dorothy, Sylvia [Bob Justman’s secretary], Harlan Ellison. We had it in G.R.’s office and everybody was very amiable. And it was funny, because Harlan had no head for alcohol. And during the party, Harlan was on one of G.R.’s couches and he was slowly dozing off, just tilting more and more to the side. But it was a very pleasant party; a pleasant exit.” (17a)

  Exhaustion.

  Robert Justman was the next to fall.
He had been pushing himself beyond the limit, arriving at the studio at 5 a.m., not leaving until 7 or 8 p.m. Once home, he’d eat a quick dinner, then continue working by reading scripts and dictating memos. And he’d do this until he dropped.

  “All of a sudden I found myself without the strength to carry on,” Justman later acknowledged. “Everything hit me at once. My own inability to function more than 20 hours a day just kind of slammed into me.” (94-4)

  Justman experienced a breakdown one night while sitting at the dining table. “I was weeping. At the same time, I was trying not to make any noise, because I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself for being so weak as to give in to my emotion.” (94-4)

  Justman’s wife Jackie, finding him in this state, poured a double scotch into her husband, then called Roddenberry and “read Gene the riot act.”

  Bob and Jackie Justman were sent to Hawaii for a week of R&R by Roddenberry. Awaiting them at the Hanalei Plantation Hotel was a telegram. It read:

  DO NOT ACCEPT BILL HEATHS PHONE CALL WE CAN WORK IT OUT HERE. GENE RODDENBERRY.

  Bill Heath had been only one of Justman’s headaches -- concerning anything to do with the post production, especially the disaster over the photographic effects, or lack of them, which nearly kept Star Trek from making its first NBC air date … or its second … or its third.

  One day later, on October 1, 1966, a new telegram arrived, reading:

  DISREGARD LAST MESSAGE PERHAPS YOU HAD BETTER TALK TO HEATH. GENE RODDENBERRY.

  And then another, on October 2:

  URGENT WHAT DID YOU AND HEATH DECIDE. GENE RODDENBERRY.

  Meanwhile, Roddenberry had told his entire staff not to take any calls from a frantic Bob Justman.

  The work continued. Roddenberry said, “I don’t think there is a person who has worked on this show who has not said to himself, ‘I am taking a calculated risk with my health. I could die of a heart attack because of the strain of this work.’” (145-4)

  William Shatner said, “A series starts off with a great idea and then time and fatigue affect everybody, so all everybody’s trying to do is get the words out, to occupy 52 1/2 minutes of film time.... To do a halfway decent series is a Herculean task.” (156-7)

  Nimoy said, of that first season, “My days were beginning to blur together; working on a series is, to indulge in some Vulcan-like understatement, grueling.” (128-3)

  Nimoy’s routine began at 5:30 a.m. so he could be in the makeup chair by 6:30. From makeup, he was off to the rehearsal table and then, a short time later, standing before the cameras. Production was supposed to wrap by 6:20 p.m., but more often than not it went later. And then Nimoy went back into makeup to have the ears and eyebrow and yellow complexion removed. As for interviews with the press, reading fan letters, returning phone calls, and dealing with family matters and personal business, it all had to wait until night and weekends. And whenever a promotional appearance was arranged, it had to be scheduled for those too few days off, or holidays.

  Interviewed for a March 1967 TV Guide article, Nimoy was asked how the exhausting workload impacted his personal life. He answered, “How do you make a marriage succeed in spite of the rigorous hours on Star Trek?... [It] has put my family and me on a stricter schedule than we ever had before. When I was freelancing, I’d often have a few days, sometimes a week or two between jobs. Don’t get me wrong; I’m very grateful for the continuous work on Star Trek, but it has meant scheduling my time much more carefully. It has invaded some of my personal time.” (128-21)

  Sandra Nimoy said, “When you’re married to an actor, you usually see quite a lot of him, but when he’s in a series, you don’t. This series has been a traumatic experience for me. It was very difficult at first, and it’s still not easy.” (128a)

  “The first year was very hard work,” DeForest Kelley said. “It almost killed us all.” (98-8)

  John D.F. Black, while at Star Trek, had been pulling double duty -- first, as one of the series associate producers, and second, as the show’s story consultant and script editor. Gene Coon had taken his place with the upgraded title as “Producer.” But Coon wanted help and therefore asked that someone else be designated as “Script Consultant.”

  Steven W. Carabatsos began working in TV just three years earlier when he placed a spec script with Ben Casey. That first sell ushered in a couple of additional assignments on Casey, and this led to a handful of script jobs with The Big Valley. A short tenure on the prime time soap Peyton Place followed. Carabatsos was off to an impressive start.

  “It was an exciting time for me, because I was really just a kid, and this was a big opportunity,” Carabatsos said. As for getting hired by Star Trek, he added, “My problem was that I didn’t share the background; I didn’t quite feel that I had the same preparation for it.” (28-1)

  Science fiction was not something Carabatsos was deeply interested in. Roddenberry and Coon were clearly taking a chance on their new script editor. Therefore, he was offered a contract for only 13 weeks, commencing on August 8, 1966, as Coon’s had. If the series was renewed to finish the season, and things hadn’t worked out with Carabatsos, he would be gone before the final episodes of Season One were shot.

  Immediately after the filming of “Miri” in early September, Roddenberry met with Bob Justman, Herb Solow and Bernard Weitzman, Desilu’s V.P. of Business Affairs. Star Trek was having money problems. The show now had a new producer whose salary was greater than John D.F. Black’s had been, and the production staff increased with the additions of Eddie Milkis and Steven Carabatsos. Another new expense: DeForest Kelley’s character of McCoy had worked out so well that he was wanted for nearly every episode produced from this point on.

  Joe D’Agosta sent Roddenberry a memo on August 12, telling his boss:

  We have fulfilled our contractual guarantee of shows in this first cycle. DeForest has become enough of a valuable member of our group that I feel his contract should be re-negotiated so that we may have him for more days per show at an agreed salary.

  Scotty, Sulu and Uhura were also working out well and wanted for more upcoming episodes. But Desilu was looking to reduce costs. Something, or someone, had to go. D’Agosta told Roddenberry:

  Grace [Whitney], for the most part, has cost us a lot of money for the little that we use her in each show. The character is one that if cast with a freelance player would cost less and would hold as much value. I suggest that we drop her option and use her on a “when needed and if available” freelance basis.

  Yeoman Rand from NBC publicity photo for “The Enemy Within,” foreshadowing a traumatized Whitney from August 1966 (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Roddenberry agreed that Yeoman Rand was dispensable. Whitney herself saw this coming and said, “They were starting to write me out of scripts because they thought that the relationship between Bill and I looked too close for him to then be able to cheat while away on other planets. They thought the audience would be upset with him if he cheated on Yeoman Rand, because there was clearly something going on between those two, even if not physical, but emotional.” (183-6)

  But she didn’t suspect that the character would be taken out of Star Trek altogether. Nor did Robert Justman. He was against losing her and was surprised, as he saw it, that Roddenberry made no effort with Solow and Weitzman to fight for Grace Lee Whitney. Her agent got the news from Desilu Business Affairs. The contract would not be renewed. Yeoman Rand was not being written out, she would simply disappear.

  Whitney had been guaranteed only seven episodes and she had already filmed six. A final screen appearance in an episode of Star Trek would be so brief that few even noticed her presence. The official word: The character hadn’t worked out. Rumors circulated that the actress hadn’t worked out, either.

  In her book, The Longest Voyage, Whitney gave a darker reason for her termination. Following the wrap party for “Miri,” the actress accompanied an unnamed “studio executive” back to his office to discuss ideas he had concerning her characte
r. Both had been drinking. The friendly get-together turned ugly. The executive wanted sex. Whitney wanted out. Her future with Star Trek, she believed, depended on what she did next. She gave in to the executive’s demands. Days later, the call came from her agent -- she was being taken off the show. She later said, “I have always believed that the executive had me removed from Star Trek because he didn’t want to be reminded of what he did to me that night. In other words, I was sacrificed on the altar of one man’s lust and guilt.” (183-2)

  The curious handling of Yeoman Rand’s last appearance in the series supports Whitney’s suspicions. The actress’ role for the next episode to film -- “The Conscience of the King” -- was downsized to a cameo, even though she was paid to be featured prominently.

  At the time of her sacking, Whitney remembered DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy being very “supportive,” but they were powerless to keep her involved with the series. Even Roddenberry and Justman seemed lacking in the necessary clout. Whitney said, “Gene Roddenberry had told me that he let Rand go against his will. He did not want to let Rand go. He wanted to keep the [romantic] conflict [between Kirk and Rand] going…. Maybe I wouldn’t have been in every episode but I wasn’t contracted to be in every one of them anyway. Rand had a lot of strength and a lot of guts. I think her character could have been further developed.” (183-7)

  In a memo to Gene Coon, dated October 28, 1966, Roddenberry wrote:

  Bob Justman and I both think we should look for an opportunity to bring Grace Lee Whitney back as “Yeoman Rand” in some upcoming episode. We might discuss at that time the possibility of trying some slightly different hairdo, something more on the order of what she wore in ‘Police Story.’ It actually made her look much younger and softer.