What guest stars would you have liked to see on TOS?

Guest stars, yes, but not lead actors, since they didn't have the time. Shatner's two appearances on M:I came after Trek ended. And Landau didn't leave M:I until right after Trek ended, so it would've been hard for him to find the time while the show was on the air.

 

Would it have been possible for the first season? He was only a special guest star for M:I by that point, so I think it would have been feasible then.

 

He was billed as a special guest star, but he was essentially a main cast member.

 

During M:I's first season, I was always disappointed when Landau wasn't in the dossier flipping scene. I think his initial contract was for 9 out of 12 or something.

 

Yes. The initial plan was for him to be a recurring (?) guest, one of various guest specialists to be brought in as needed, I suppose -- but two things happened to change that. One, he was very well received, so the writers started putting him in more and more episodes. Two, original lead Steven Hill had increasing problems with the producers. His Orthodox Judaism meant he couldn't work on Saturdays, limiting his shooting schedule; and there was an incident on one episode where he refused to do a minor stunt (climbing a ladder) and shut himself in his trailer for the rest of the day. So after that, they did an episode he wasn't even in, then for the rest of the production season they just had him set up the mission and then not participate in it directly (although the episodes' airdates were mixed up enough that he was still in on the action intermittently throughout the season). As a result, Landau became the de facto lead actor of the show, even though he wasn't technically a regular at all. (I believe they offered him the lead role in later seasons, but he didn't want to commit to signing for more than a year at a time, so they brought in Peter Graves instead.) Ultimately, Landau was in all but 2 of the first season's episodes, missing only episodes 12 and 14 in broadcast order. (He was absent from the initial team in episode 2, but was brought in later in the episode after the plan went wrong and they needed to improvise a solution.)

 

Yep, and with Jack Nicholson, Susan Strasberg, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Dean Stockwell, and Adam Roarke we can re-cast "The Way To Eden".

 

I don't actually have the book, and someone who knows, please correct me on my knowledge of Jewish prayer rituals - very WASP here!

One of Solow's classic yarns about Hill is how Solow had to run onto the Trek set to grab Shatner and Nimoy off the Trek set because Hill needed to do certain prayers, and they needed x number of males to do it. The mind's image of Shatner and Nimoy in full Starfleet uniform - and ears - in the middle of some prayer ritual is priceless!

 

Only if it were Patterns of Force! And of course, you would have to include John Banner.
But seriously, Klemperer would have been an interesting choice as John Gill.

I'm also thinking the Lloyd Bridges, Lorne Greene, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Peter O'toole, Yaphet Kotto, Sidney Poitier, Chuck Conners, Jack Klugman, Russell Johnson, Raymond Burr, Al Lewis, Barbara Eden (as an Orion girl), DIana Rigg, Natalie Wood, Lee Merriweather, Dawn Wells, Julie Newmar, Carolyn Jones, Donna Douglas, Barbara Stanwick, Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Soledad Miranda,Raquel Welch,and Elizabeth Montgomery would all have been great guest stars.

I also wish they could have used Jeffrey Hunter in the Menagerie.

 

Correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minyan

 

Lee Meriwether was Losira in "That Which Survives" and Julie Newmar was Eleen in "Friday's Child."

 

... Steve McQueen

 

I would love to have seen Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden in an episode of the original series! I know that this time both were unable to participate in other series, as already starred Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. But they are two actresses of the time that I love and I think it would have been great to see them in an episode of Star Trek!

 

Montgomery could have played Sylvia in "Catspaw".