The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek, Volume 1

by Edward Gross

  We could have brought in people who wrote horror shows, but I think we would have gone off the air in the first year. In the first season we built into it a fascinating subculture, if you will, of alien life. We used writers who did a lot of work for Rod Serling on Twilight Zone, because we wanted to get that feeling, and we did, and the audience picked up on it, and that what makes Star Trek today.

  We did not do monster shows per se, we didn’t have blatant heavies on the show. I think what we did was very introspective stories. We did people stories. I think we dealt with alien life on a very fair basis—just because you were an alien doesn’t mean you’re bad. We dealt with benevolent dictators, we took various sides on issues, and I think that’s what the audience picked up and has liked all these years, but I must tell you, that wasn’t what we had in mind when we first started. It was an action-adventure series in outer space, and NBC felt it could be a very successful adventure show, RCA felt it could sell color television sets, and we felt it would make Desilu important again as a supplier of quality television.

  JIM RUGG (special-effects chief, Star Trek)

  The first year on Star Trek was the most exciting year I’ve ever spent in the business. It was all new and we were all experimenting and nobody knew where we were going. We fumbled our way through and sometimes lost and sometimes won … it was the only show, before or since, where the effects men got fan mail.

  SCOTT MANTZ (film critic, Access Hollywood)

  Think about it: back in the sixties nobody knew what Star Trek was. It was an expensive show. It’s easy for us to lose sight of this now. Every time they were doing something with regards to a visual effect, it had never been done. Compare the look of the first season of Star Trek to Lost in Space. [Director of photography] Jerry Finnerman was a genius. That is art. I love how in “Charlie X,” after Charlie makes the crewman disappear for laughing, Kirk steps into the shot, the light is on his eyes, and he goes, “Go to your quarters before I pick you up and carry you there.” It’s brilliant. You look at an episode like [season two’s] “Metamorphosis” with a purple sky and the way when they went to Cochrane’s home you see the clouds above. They never really did that before. And they turned off all the fans and said, “Nobody move.” So that the clouds would look stationary. The cinematography of that episode with the purples and pinks is beautiful. By the time [Director of Photography] Al Francis took over halfway through the third season, it was too light and bright.

  GERALD FINNERMAN (director of photography, Star Trek)

  I felt the pilot looked a little too lush. We had discussed a look on the show that they wanted but didn’t get. It was a ratio of lighting. We didn’t want it to look like just people and no background, of course we wanted to see the background, but they didn’t want everything so full, musical-looking. The pilots were rather full. I brought my camera crew over from Warner Bros. and we started Star Trek and it was very ambitious. I took a look at the sets and they were tremendous. There were these big cycloramas, and I talked to the producers and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice for each planet to have a different atmosphere? Who’s to say that Planet 17 isn’t purple or orange or magenta?” And they really liked that idea.

  DOUG DREXLER (scenic artist, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

  I watched the entire first season in black-and-white, which I tell people all the time. Try watching the original series shows with the color off and you’ll be really impressed. And then watch an episode of Enterprise with the color off. It’s mud. In those days, most people had black-and-white television sets. The DP shot for black-and-white and color. He had to know it was going to look good in both. So the use of shadows and contrast and the graphic quality of it was all very important. If you watch the original series of Star Trek, the episodes look great in color and black-and-white. No one ever looks at them in black-and-white anymore. I can’t imagine why anybody would, but if you’re interested in film or television, you should.

  GERALD FINNERMAN

  The network would say, “Don’t use color on the people.” We had a sequence, I believe it was on the first show, where they go into a red alert, and it was wonderful. It gave me the opportunity to try something different. There we were on the bridge of the Enterprise and they’re being attacked, and I went to this red alert and took out all of the white light and came on with the red. I had a little crosslight of white for a source for the lab, and I would have the red around for backlighting and process. It was very effective, and everybody loved it. Then that got me into using more and more colors. I may have gone overboard on it possibly, but it was so much fun. I look at the episodes today, and they’re terrific.

  GENE RODDENBERRY

  Star Trek was considered a silly fantasy, because man had not yet landed on the moon. My own father went out and apologized to the neighbors. He said, “I know the boy’s up to something silly, but he’ll come back and write a good American western.”

  At the end of the season, Star Trek won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Series. Gene Roddenberry quickly dispatched a telegram to Mort Werner at NBC: “Hugo Award was given to Star Trek for the Pilot #1 combined two-parter (referred to internally as ‘The Envelope’). ‘The Menagerie’ won over Fantastic Voyage and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Hope you are pleased too. Is it too late to make use of voice announcement on Star Trek promotional spots over the next few days?” Apparently it was, as such promos were never created.

  GERALD FINNERMAN

  I was only thirty-two years old, and it was my first job as a cinematographer. I made a lot of artistic decisions without sharing too much information in advance. Otherwise, I’d have ended up playing it safe. On a show like Star Trek, you have to push the envelope. The result of playing it safe is a diet of pabulum. I was always pushing the directors to go a little further. I’d say, “On this two-shot, when Kirk walks away from McCoy, we can dolly over and take him over to the bridge.” They weren’t comfortable with that. I liked to see a scene flow for three or four pages rather than shoot a straight master and then break it into close-ups.

  I think much of the look also came from the placement of lights and the use of colored gels. We also saved the company a lot of money, since they didn’t have to paint sets to make them look different. We painted them with light. We changed walls from gray to blue to green, depending on the mood and what we wanted to say about the planet. One day we created a purple sky. Another day, the same set looked like a hot desert in March. A third day, it was deep blue. We did it with filters and lights.

  FAMILY FEUD

  “ONE DAY OUR MINDS BECAME SO POWERFUL WE DARED THINK OF OURSELVES AS GODS.”

  The addition of Gene L. Coon in the midst of Star Trek’s first season set the show on a fairly steady course creatively, with some of the series’ best episodes yet to come in the sophomore year. At the same time, the seeds of discontent that had been planted in that first year began to take root. As production commenced on year two, the shock waves were truly beginning to reverberate.

  When Star Trek was launched, the concept was that William Shatner would be the series’ star as Captain James T. Kirk. Indeed, the show’s “bible” offers, “The stories, certainly for a series, certainly for all the early ones, must be built strongly around the central lead character. The basic problem must be his and he must dominate the events and work out his solution. Considerable attention must be given to establishing and constantly examining his full character, giving him an interesting range of mixed strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies—and the net sum must result, must attract the audience and invite audience-identification.”

  The intent seems pretty clear, but once episodes began to air the audience very quickly embraced Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, with the media following in lockstep. As this so-called second banana rose in popularity, the stoic Vulcan science officer threatened to eclipse the captain. Now, whether this was ego or an actor recognizing his position and attempting to maximize the potential for himself, Nimoy and his talent agency
representatives came up with a list of demands—both creative and fiscal—that resulted in the very real possibility that the character would be replaced. Indeed, actor Lawrence Montaigne, who had played a Romulan officer in season one’s “Balance of Terror” and the Vulcan Stonn in season two’s “Amok Time,” was put under contract in early April 1967.

  LAWRENCE MONTAIGNE (actor, “Amok Time”)

  Leonard wanted more money and they negotiated with my agent for me to replace him as another character, not Spock, but with the same background. Then Leonard came back and my agent called me and said, “You’re out.” But I was working so much at the time that it didn’t really matter to me. The idea of joining the show was interesting. They made a very attractive deal. Not as much as Leonard was getting, but it was steady work and I wouldn’t have to go out and audition for roles. I’m one of those actors where I had three shots at series, but none of them worked out, for better or for worse. So I was not very upset or anything.

  MARC CUSHMAN (author, These Are the Voyages)

  They almost didn’t have Spock for the second season of Star Trek. The fan mail got so intense during the first year, sacks and sacks of mail every day. His agent said, “He’s only getting twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week and he needs a raise,” but Desilu is losing money on the show and the board of directors was thinking of canceling it even if NBC wanted to continue because it was bankrupting the studio. So they said, “We can’t give you a raise,” and they replied, “He’s not reporting to work.” Gene Coon returns from vacation on April 1 and has a memo from Gene Roddenberry that says “Dear Gene: This is not an April fool’s joke. It looks like we’ll be going forward without Mr. Spock. We’ve hired another actor and he’ll be playing a different Vulcan character on the show.” It really came down to the wire, and the one that broke the stalemate was the one that didn’t want Spock in the first place: NBC. “You are not doing the show without that guy. Pay him whatever you need to pay him to keep him on the show.”

  LAWRENCE MONTAIGNE

  Shortly thereafter they called me and said they wanted me to play the character of Stonn in “Amok Time.” They sent the script to my agent and he called me and said, “I think we’d better discuss this.” So I went to the office and all of the character’s dialogue was on one page. It didn’t explain that he was a focus all the way through, that he was the guy. But I looked at the five lines and said, “I ain’t doing this.” My agent said, “Don’t worry, we’ll ask for some ridiculous amount of money and star billing, and they won’t consider it.” So he calls me back and says, “I’ve got good news and bad news. They accepted the deal.” And I was stuck. I went ahead and did it, it was an easy job. I just had to stand there and look menacing. But the funny part about it is that almost fifty years later I returned as the same character in the [fan] film Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. And Arlene Martel, who played the girl I was supposed to marry in “Amok Time,” performed the marriage ceremony between my character and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Star Trek is a small world.

  While Roddenberry and Desilu were united in the notion of recasting Spock, NBC ultimately rejected the idea, recognizing the importance of Nimoy’s presence and not willing to alienate the fan base for a show that was, to use the parlance of today’s television-speak, “on the bubble.” In the end, Nimoy’s demands were met and instead of Kirk or Spock being the lead, the scripts began focusing on them as a team. Problem solved? Not exactly. The sense of competition continued, and it impacted the production of the series—as did the actors’ attempts to exert more control on the show creatively.

  JOSEPH PEVNEY (director, “Amok Time”)

  In the beginning, there was the word and the word was “cooperation.” But then they started reading the fan mail. This was the first year and they were on tenterhooks. Every time the phone would ring it was, “Are we canceled? Are we canceled?” Everybody was lovely in the beginning. The relationships were exciting and good and then Gene Roddenberry let things get out of hand. I have to blame the producer on this, because the director is a lover and father image and all that, and he’s in love with his people and must treat them very carefully so as not to offend or hurt. But the producer’s function is to be the stern father who punishes for misbehavior and so on. Gene could never play that role. Gene Coon could a little, but they didn’t pay too much attention to him because Roddenberry was the top boss. So they would give lip service to Gene Coon, and then Roddenberry would come down and love everything he saw.

  MARC CUSHMAN

  Most of the people didn’t get a sense of the feud. They came back for that second season, and the Emmy nominations came out, and Leonard Nimoy was nominated for an Emmy, and William Shatner wasn’t. Here your costar, your second banana, just got a raise, a record deal, and script approval, and is up for an Emmy and getting more fan mail than you, but other than that they were friends. But as the star you have to protect your position. And William Shatner was a star.

  JOSEPH PEVNEY

  Right after the second season pickup, things started to occur. The actors wanted to make a bigger contribution in the writing, so they wanted a rehearsal table thrown on the stage. The motivator of all this was, I think, Bill Shatner. Leonard could make his contributions in a quiet way by going into the office and talking to Coon or Roddenberry, and they were all very receptive. But all of a sudden things started to move away from the producer and director and to the actors. So like a producer himself, Bill would arrange the table and seats and he would talk to the property man to move things over to the side. Well, when you’re doing television in five or six days, or whatever the schedule was back then, there’s no time for this constant rehearsal, a reading rehearsal, offstage, with pencils in hand and making changes. Because once you start making changes on the set, they have to be approved by the producer.

  The propensity of the leads to make changes, particularly Shatner, prompted a memo from Roddenberry which he copied to Nimoy as well as Gene Coon and Robert Justman. “Due to our production staff being deeply involved in postproduction problems, it was necessary to make a number of script dialogue and action changes on set. And we appreciate the hard work you and others did in accomplishing this. However, obviously none of us want this to become a habit since it is precisely this type of thing which has destroyed the format and continuity of more than one television series … where one person makes a change, others who may be less capable are encouraged to stick in their oar too, the director is encouraged to toss in some ideas of his…”

  ROBERT H. JUSTMAN (associate producer, Star Trek)

  Bill was the instigator of the rehearsal table. He wanted to be able to rehearse and I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you what. In between takes we’ll set up a table, we’ll grab everyone and go over the next scene.” Bill had wanted to do that and we made it possible. It was useful. It certainly helped an awful lot.

  JOSEPH PEVNEY

  It’s time-consuming. It destroys the most important thing of all, the disciplinary control of the director on the set. It’s a very critical and tentative thing, which the television industry has gone away from completely. The director on a television set is nothing anymore. He doesn’t mean a goddamned thing. He’s an errand boy. I’m an angry guy when it comes to this kind of shit. I come from a disciplined school where everything is in the script. Nothing else counts. What is the story? And that is your function. Your responsibility is to tell the story as the writer intended it. That is my definition of a director. Once that’s interfered with, he loses all control. So anyway, every time you would have a “Cut. Print,” you’d have these guys rushing over under Bill’s command to the table to work on the next scene.

  ROBERT H. JUSTMAN

  I don’t think Leonard or Bill ever gave up wanting to make the show better. Especially Leonard. He always wanted to make it better, make his character more believable, and not take the easy way out. The problem is, of course, that the actors get the script a few days before they start the shooting, and then it
’s a little late to try and effect changes. We did try to accommodate them as much as we possibly could, even though it made our lives hell. There wasn’t any time.

  I initiated a policy in the second season that may have had something to do with that feeling. We alternated directors rather than in the first season where we had scattergunned. For the most part we had Marc Daniels and Joe Pevney alternate, because they knew the show, they seemed to know what to do with the show first season very well and the film was generally very, very good. So I said, speaking from a cost factor, we’d be able to get as many shows as we could possibly get with the time and money we had to spend.

  These two guys were very, very good, but at the same time we found out—I found out—familiarity breeds contempt. I shouldn’t say that. It tends to relax a little bit too much when it’s the same guy every time and you lose a little bit of that excitement you wanted to maintain. You should understand that Joe was extremely well liked on the set. The cast really liked him, the crew really liked him. He was very likable and motivated. Marc, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish. Marc, in my opinion, turned out better shows, but he was a more difficult personality. He was truly well versed in all forms of drama and comedy. His experience was unlimited, because he had been a successful movie director, stage director, television director, and he had a very good eye for compositions. He was a very all-around kind of director, but he was more demanding than most. He ran a tougher set.

  JOSEPH PEVNEY

  While Marc and I went off to other shows, they brought in new directors, and the new directors had ideas. But the actors were already ingrained in behavior patterns which did not permit new inventiveness which was, as they felt, opposed to their character. That was the real beginning of the problem. Bill would not do certain things because Kirk wouldn’t do that. Leonard certainly felt that way, very strongly, because his character was so deeply ingrained that he knew precisely how Spock would behave in a certain setting.