Star Trek passings

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by keel, Oct 16, 2017.

  1. 137th Gebirg

    137th Gebirg Admiral Premium Member

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    Me too. I’ve been mentally preparing myself for that day and I dread its impending arrival. He’s amazingly spry for 90 but, shit, he’s 90!! One of the many amazing things about that guy. He’s a personal hero of mine, and not just because of Trek.
     
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  2. FormerLurker

    FormerLurker Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Shatner (and NImoy, while he was alive) were always a couple months older than my own father, and that played a role in why I like Kirk and Spock so much. Of course, my dad died the beginning of March, so that's no longer a concern.
     
  3. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I saw Shatner last year (i think, or 2019, it's all a blur) in person, he really didn't strike me as being as old as he was.

    A few more off the TOS list, and few obscurities:
    1. Meade Martin is still alive, b. 1933.
    2. Brad Forrest has passed, b. 1933 d. 1998
    3. Gary Pillar has passed, b. 1936 d. 1985 (I just fixed this on MA, I'm not sure if this was on anyone's radar, so maybe this one is for me:)
    4. Nedra Rosmond (Uhura's one-time stunt double) has passed, b. 1938 d. 2017
    5. Maryls Burdette (MA bio updated) is still alive, b. 1938.
    6. Barbara Webber has passed, b. 1940 d. 2005
    7. Tom Lupo is still alive, b. 1943
    I also searched in vain for Mark Tobin, but he's a dead end.
     
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  4. 137th Gebirg

    137th Gebirg Admiral Premium Member

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    Sorry to hear that. :(
     
  5. keel

    keel Commander Red Shirt

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    Thanks for this info. Geez, that puts TOS at 324 known who've passed.
     
  6. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    Pretty impressive research Gvsualan. The only ones that you have been unable to find any information on are Alice Rawlings and Mark Tobin. And you've cleared up the status of probably close to 20 actors. I had stumbled across an obituary for Gary pillar but I never mentioned it here because I lost track of the specific link to his obituary and I wasn't completely sure.
    Also someone we know is alive because he's been in the spotlight since his 8mm home movies were featured on the Blu Rays, but I don't have a birth year for is William "Billy" Blackburn.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2021
  7. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    A little bit of trivia on William Blackburn. Before he was on Star Trek he appeared in the Twilight Zone episode "On Thursday We Leave For Home". Which was one of the better hour long Twilight Zone episodes. In that episode he plays a crew member of the spaceship that rescues the stranded colonists. And of course the spaceship is a reuse of the space cruiser C-57 from Forbidden Planet. That means he's probably the only actor who was a crew member of both the Enterprise and the C-57! If you ever watch the episode he descends the stairs of the cruiser at time Mark 18:04 he climbs back up the stairs at 25:41 and he is standing right over the right shoulder of actor Tim O'Connor who plays the captain of the ship at 40:56 and lastly he is watching as James Whitmore freaks out at time mark 43:39 to the right of where James Whitmore is standing. As per usual he doesn't have any speaking lines.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2021
  8. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Thanks. Blackburn's was easy, March 14, 1929.

    MA has a link to a defunct website's interview with him that gave his age and place of birth....
     
  9. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I bet he'll beat Kirk to 10p. :-p
     
  10. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    Wow he's 92 years old! Back in 2006 when he was doing the interviews on the Blu-ray set he didn't seem 77. At least to me.
     
  11. keel

    keel Commander Red Shirt

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    Personally, I hope his ST videos that he filmed will be donated to a museum. Classic stuff.
     
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  12. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Er, Shatner to 100.... *sigh* 6 more days and i can finally fix edit flubs (i hope).

    I wish there was more information about Jeannie Malone, she appeared in about as many episodes as Blackburn, 42+, but notta about her. For that matter, if it wasn't for Blackburn revealing her name while narrating his videos, she wouldn't have been accurately ID'd. She was previously ID'd as Jeannie Shepard, but I'm not sure the source for that.
     
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  13. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I take some of that back, she was regerenced in Grace Lee Whitney's autobiography as her stand-in, but it was Blackburn who ID'd her appearance.
     
  14. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    Good luck finding any information on Cindy Lou. Who? - she's the young African-American nurse who had one line of dialogue in Return to Tomorrow. If my memory is correct she also appeared in one other episode without a speaking part. And it's her only known acting credit. Talk about dropping off the radar!
    Actually the list of unknown "birth and/or death" date actors contains 4 actors whose only role in television and movies was a Star Trek episode. Sheri Townsend Jim Spencer Patrick Christian and Cindy Lou all have one acting credit each and that is a Star Trek episode! I guess if you're going to have one acting Credit in your career Star Trek is a pretty cool place to have it.
     
  15. Myko

    Myko Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Jeannie Shephard came from an e-mail convesation I had with Eddie Paskey where he evidentely misremembered her last name.
     
  16. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Yeah, without the cast sheet, she's virtually impossible to find, as I might guess Cindy Lou is not her full name.

    I did find Irene Kelly's bday: 7-25-43, but she just kind of disappeared in the late 70s, and from what I can tell, she's not married to the same man she was married to in the 60s.
     
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  17. dupersuper

    dupersuper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    :beer:
     
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  18. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Pickins are slimming, but I found a few more birthdays:
    * Lee Duncan (Evans): 13 Jan 39
    * Maureen/Colleen Thornton (Barbara series): 30 May 1946 (expanded both MA articles too)
    * Carolyn Nelson (Atkins): 1 Sept 1946
     
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  19. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    You've got it down to basically around 10 actors that we don't have a birth date for and we're not sure if they're still alive. That's a ton of progress in a couple of weeks. And I long ago resigned myself to the fact that some of these actors are so far off the grid that we're never going to find out when they were born and we'll never know when or if they've already passed.
    The funny thing is if I was on the original Star Trek as an actor with a speaking part no matter how small and I was still alive I would be telling my kids and my grandkids and my nieces and nephews that I was on the original Star Trek. I guess that's my perspective as a huge fan of the show maybe it meant little or nothing to somebody who acted for a year or two back in the 60s.
     
  20. Gvsualan

    Gvsualan Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Same here. But then again, John Winston seemed to indicate his appearances meant very little to him.

    As for what I've found, most that I have births but no deaths I'm assuming are still alive, or at least only recently passed and that data hasn3 ttickled down yet into the information catacombs yet.

    I have a few others on the back burner i need a bit more evidence to confirm verification, but a lot also simply have too common of names. I did find the birthdates of the other, other twins from "I, Mudd", Starr and Tamara Wilson, born 13 Dec 1947, but I can't find much info beyond the late 60s for one, and mid-70s for the other.

    Which, with these two, and the aforementioned Thornton sisters, brings me to wonder which were the the ones, exactly, who had the bobcat and have never been fully ID'd aside from a couple vague references.

    The Making of Star Trek, pp. 349-50:

    "It is easy to get the impression that every casting decision is carefully thought out in advance. Nothing could be further from the truth. There have been occasions when a casting decision was the result of pure chance. This was certainly the case with the episode entitled "I, Mudd."​

    "It was an unusual casting problem in that a number of identical twins were needed for extras, as well as for the leading ladies. Joe D'Agosta soon found out Hollywood is unbelievably short on girl twins who are beautiful, have great figures, and can act. He simply couldn't find twin girls who were right for the part. The situation began to get desperate. Then one evening, on his way home, he was driving down Sunset Boulevard and by chance saw two lovely young twin girls walking along the sidewalk. He immediately stopped the car, jumped out, and accosted them, saying "Can you act? Have you ever acted?" Apparently he was really in a dither, and he hadn't even introduced himself. The girls thought he was trying to put something over on them.​

    "Joe finally convinced the girls he was indeed a casting director from Desilu Studios, and if they would please, please appear the following day, they would get an interview for a part in a television show. When the girls came in. Joe brought them into a meeting with Dorothy Fontana, Gene Coon, and Bob Justman. They were lovely girls, about seventeen or eighteen years old, with great figures. They were both wearing low-cut dresses, with the skirt ending at about the hip, and they had a bobcat with them.

    "A real wild bobcat.

    "It was their pet and was about six weeks old at the time. Bob Justman was apparently somewhat flustered at the sight of these lovely young ladies in micro-mini skirts and tinkling peace bells, and not knowing where to fasten his eyes, he began staring at the bobcat. Bob made small talk, and since the bobcat was the thing he had been staring at, he talked about bobcats. (He also nearly had a finger gnawed off by the affectionate animal.) He told the girls that when bobcats get bigger, if they're not spayed, they kill dogs. One of the girls said very innocently, "Well, how do you know when they are old enough?" Bob replied, "When they start killing dogs."

    "(Bob says he doesn't remember that . . . probably because he was dazed at the time.)​

    'From the Notes of "Charlie Star Trek"', Starlog #112, November 1986, p. 72:

    "Most Unusual Request. During the pro- duction of "I, Mudd," a number of sets of twins were used. I was summoned to the dressing room of a female pair of twins by the wardrobe girl, Andrea Weaver, who told me that they were going to leave the set to go home for an emergency. When I arrived, I learned the emergency's nature: their pet bobcat had escaped! They were bent on leav- ing immediately, but I talked through the situation with them. We agreed that they would stay, but I would keep in touch through calls to a neighbor of theirs. It worked. They stayed. They stayed. I never found out what happened to the bobcat, though."
    I also feel like there is a third reference somewhere that escapes me, something like someone pointed out to the casting director that the girls may have been of ill repute...or I could be very wrong.

    Either way, neither appeared to have previously acted. The Thornton sisters were 21, the Wilson sisters were 19. The description seems to fit that of the Thornton sisters, as well as the lifestyle they lived for the next several years, vs. the Wilson sisters who months later joined the military. It's all a bit subjective, but a curious thing to ponder, nonetheless.
     
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