Rare Photos 1

 Starting off this series of new posts of always old, sometimes rare, black and white publicity photos with this one of Shatner in front of the Transporter Room wall picture, during the filming of "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Below, a unique set of publicity photos of Majel Barrett posing with a panel on the set of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

More Vintage Nichelle!

 You can never have too much vintage Nichelle! Here are a couple of new ones to me. First, Nichelle in a still from her guest spot on the 70's "Tarzan" series episodes "The Deadly Silence: Part 1 & 2" as she played a character named Ruana. One can easily imagine this is Uhura on leave after the first five-year mission, on a visit to Earth and her Bantu home and family in the United States of Africa.

In real life, the series was concurrent with Trek, from 1966-68. Since this episode was aired on 10-28-66, Trek was already in production by a couple of months, so she may have taken off from Trek to run over to the filming locations of "Tarzan," since it was also on NBC. I wonder if it coincided with any of her absences on Trek?

Below, a rare candid photo of Nichelle after a guest appearance at an early 70's  New York City Star Trek convention. We see Leonard Nimoy goofing around in a very familiar way with Nichelle, with writer Harlan Ellison in the background. (With tinted glasses and an arm around her waist.) Note the convention "Crew" badge worn by the lady on the left. It appears that Nichelle is in the middle of, or very close to, a "nip slip" in this photo! Copies of this photo are for sale on ebay, here.

Below, a rare publicity shot of Nichelle in character. I've never seen this particular one before now.

Below, a couple of montages of photos that were really too small to feature individually.

Bonus: Not a particularly rare image, but stunning nonetheless; Nichelle during the filming of (possibly) "The Wrath of Khan," or one of the other sequels, like "The Search For Spock". That mischievous smile is enchanting!

Bonus #2: Here is a blog entry on another site that gives a good overview of Nichelle's singing and dancing career, as part of a review of her album, "Dark Side Of The Moon.". I enjoyed reading it and was pleased and amused to see my own site in the list of links at the bottom for more info on Nichelle!

"Paint 'er greener!" The Famous Orion Makeup Test!

William McCullar's IDIC Page, sadly defunct now, made available this very rare image of Majel Barrett (M. Leigh Hudec at the time) when she was screen-testing the makeup for the Green Orion Slave Girl.

The “green girl” was the creation of Fred Phillips who also made Spock’s Vulcan look for the original Star Trek television series. Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry recalled in The Making of Star Trek (1968) how Phillips grew increasingly frustrated as three consecutive makeup screen tests, in which Roddenberry’s future wife Majel Barrett had been painted green, came back negative. "Now, Fred Phillips is an exceptionally fine makeup artist and recognized as a top pro in the business. He did a thorough job with the makeup and was quite satisfied with the results. Imagine everyone’s surprise, upon viewing the developed film the next day, to find the actress’ face just as normally pink skinned as ever! There was no trace of green." Gene’s orders to Fred Phillips: “Paint her greener!” The following day the test film again showed her as pink skinned as ever. Even Fred was dumbfounded. Recalling the incident, he says, “We did this three days in a row. We had her so green you couldn’t believe it and she kept coming back pink! Finally we figured out what was happening. The technician over at the film lab would receive the film every day and run it through the development solution. As the image formed on the film, he kept saying to himself, ‘My God, this woman is green!’ And so he kept correcting the film developing process in order to turn her back to normal skin color again!”

Bonus: Below, a rare photo of Shatner and Whitney, made after the second pilot, but before the first filmed episode. The uniform worn by Shatner was only ever seen in these promo photos and never in an episode. 

"See, you adjust this satellite dish and you can get hundreds of channels for only dollars a day!"

Bonus: A cartoon from the fanzine "Enterprise Incidents" that echoes the MAD Magazine depiction on a similar occurrence, referenced below it.

Some Rare Photos To Enjoy!

Here are a few rare photos that have turned up online, that you may enjoy!

(Click on images to enlarge. Once open, you may have to click again to view full-size.)

De and Leslie Parrish behind the scenes between takes while filming "Who Mourns For Adonis?"

An unusual promotional photo of Walter in front of a wall thingie that looks like it was made with an oven rack!

Nichelle shows her lovely kittycat some attention and love!

Between scenes in "The Final Frontier," the Big Three do their version of the monkeys who refuse to speak, hear or see bad things.

Nimoy Publicity Photo: Spock With Vulcan Lyre

A rarely-seen publicity photo of Nimoy with the Vulcan lyrette prop.

(Click on image to enlarge, Once open, you may have to click again to view full-size.)

Happy Birthday to Grace Lee Whitney!

Happy Birthday to Grace Lee Whitney! As Janice Rand, she got a raw deal, unceremoniously booted to make room for other women in Kirk's life, but she will always be there in the earlier episodes for us to enjoy. Below, some nice photos showing the progression of her look; first, from before the series started, one of  a large number of promotional photos, this time in a costume left over from "The Cage" and featuring her with her long blonde hair let down.  View some of the earlier posts featuring Grace here, as there are more good photos.

(Click on images to enlarge; once open, you may have to click on it again to view full size.)

And below, Grace as Rand as we saw her in the series, basket weave intact. Saucy!
 

Below, a headshot from "The Motion Picture."

Bonus #2: Below, from Starlog, a hilarious cartoon that looks at one of the most out-of-character moments for Spock in the entire series. At the end of the great episode "The Enemy Within," Spock, while signing off on a report for Janice Rand, says the line below with an uncharacteristically creepy leer. I know the episode was an early effort, when not all the characters were nailed down yet, but the line is something that would have been unsavory coming from anyone, much less Spock. Even coming from Kirk himself it would have been weird, if not completely unexpected. But Spock? It's like he was mentioning the unpleasantness in such a slimy way in order to see if he could get in on some of that action himself. Not cool.

James Doohan's Birthday

I've never really known how to address birthdays of the deceased. You can't really say "Happy Birthday!" as it is a wish for someone that is no longer here to do so. So I am simply saying "let's celebrate this person's life on the anniversary of their birth." James Doohan was born on March 3, 1920, and if he were still with us, he would be 95, and we would be wishing him "Happy Birthday, Jimmy!" We wish you were still with us. We celebrate your memory and contribution to Trek by a toast of a glass of something green.

Browse through some of the Doohan-oriented posts on this blog by clicking here.

Bonus link: What happens when you combine the faces of the original cast with the faces of the new cast from the reboot? Go here and see!

1984 Interview With Mark Lenard

 As a regular reader of this blog you may have noticed that a number of recent posts have been from the Enterprise Incidents magazine (as opposed to the earlier versions when I refer to it as a fanzine); well, I had recently taken out a stack from one of my collection cabinets and realized how much Trek material there was left to feature. So, I will continue to post articles from various issues until I feel that it has been properly represented here and not overwhelmed in number by Starlog posts (which are now all available online in a collection anyway).

This time we open issue #18, published in June of 1984 (the year that "Splash" came out; seems like a long time ago now), and we are featuring a nice lengthy interview with "Sarek" himself, Mark Lenard. Thanks again to editor and writer James Van Hise for publishing this. Enjoy!

(Click on images to enlarge; once open, you may have to click on it once more to view full-size.)

Extra: As an aside, I wish to quote writer D. C. Fontana (from a letter to fanzine Spockanalia,) on the subject of other children belonging to Sarek: "Both his mother and father have been married only once... to each other... Spock is an only child... there are absolutely no other siblings..." So, that would put Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier" out the canoniacal window... where, I believe, it firmly belongs. 

Bonus #1: Since the article was released before the movie and there were no images of Sarek in his movie costume and makeup, below is a nice publicity photo.

 

Bonus #2: Below, another one of the1967 Leaf bubblegum cards that continues the trend of nonsensical captions.

Bonus #3: A rare autographed photo of DeForest Kelley that was found along with some others in a record jacket bought at a thrift store. Talk about stumbling onto hidden gold! Go here to view all the others, they are quite amazing!

Commemorating Kelly

DeForest Kelly's birthday was January 20th, and I couldn't let it pass without some kind of mention. This true Southern gentleman (born in Taccoa, GA) never let the lights of Hollywood get in his eyes and change him from the kind and humble man he was.

Here is a link to all the posts on this blog that are tagged with his name. A great way to celebrate his memory!

Bonus: a behind-the-scenes photo of Kelley getting his old-age makeup applied for "The Deadly Years." He had a great time acting in this episode as he took his "crusty old country doctor" persona to the ultimate level!

1980 DeForest Kelly Interview

 One got the feeling from just watching the original series that "Dr. McCoy" was the most relatable human on the show; the person that represented the "everyman" from our time period, and the actor DeForest Kelly was the one we could be most comfortable around. DeForest Kelley was that kind of person in real-life, as all the interviews bear out. Here's a good one from Starlog issue #38, published in September of 1980.

Click on images to enlarge; once open, you may have to click again to view full size.

Bonus: a candid closeup of De from a movie magazine that came out during the series run.

Bonus #2: a great shot of Bill giving archery lessons to De during the series.

"Okay, De, let's try to hit Leonard in the behind and bring him down a couple of notches."

More Janice Rand Images

Back when the series was about to begin regular production, it was planned that Janice Rand would be one of the more prominent characters and certainly the main female to bring the sex appeal. However, Nichelle Nichols was always on the bridge in almost every shot that looked back toward Kirk's chair, and she more than amply supplied the sweet, sweet eye candy. And, it was realized that Rand cramped the Captain's style when it came to romancing the alien ladies. So, before long during the first season she was used less and less and finally -sadly- released. However, not before she got the attention of a lot of male viewers, and it is they who will appreciate these unusual promotions images, some taken before production of the series and some during.

(As usual click on the images to enlarge. You might have to click again once it opens to view full-size.)

"Mr. Spock, remind me to keep the temperature down on the bridge in the future."

Bonus: a page from one of the movie magazines back during the series third season, from February of 1969..

Bonus: the packaging of the Pocket Flix film viewer that supplied fans with their own (one-minute) clip for watching whenever they wanted! I bought one about 1978 and it was the first time I could actually "watch" a real part of an episode apart from TV. This was before videotape players were available to most, and certainly to me. It was taken from the episode "By Any Other Name," and was edited together from the scene where the two security guards were reduced to polyhedrons, and the scene of the barrier-crossing, which was very exciting to own! Such was my mania that I even dubbed those scenes from one of my cassette tapes of the episode to match the editing of the film, then would synch them up as I watched to supply sound!

Bonus link: Star Trek In Cinerama! See how scenes from various episodes of TOS look in widescreen, done without cropping the image. It's "fascinating" to coin a phrase! Except where characters are in the scene twice, then it gets a bit weird.