"Star Trek is" document question

[somebuddyX]

In the article "Star Trek is..." at Memory Alpha, it describes Number One as a "slim, Nubian woman" and when I google imaged what nubian means it suggests dark-skinned people from between Egypt and Ethopia. The document also says Number One was written for Majel Barrett, who looks caucasian to me. I guess my question is: is there any suggestion that Gene Roddenberry was thinking of having a black female first officer in the original pilot? I feel like this would be a big deal but I am wondering if he was just using the word nubian differently than what I found the meaning to be or it's changed meaning since then. Cheers.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'll bet Gene conflated Nubian in his mind with nubile, meaning Hot Chick. It's just a sexy sounding adjective.

The word shows up again in "Gothos"

TRELANE: Ah a Nubian prize. (he kisses her hand) Taken on one of your raids of conquest, no doubt, Captain.

Somewhere I read the anecdote that William Campbell flubbed the line at first. He exclaimed "A Nubian slave!" And Nichols reportedly said something like "I'll kick your ass!"

 

[Christopher]

I think Memory Alpha is in error. My copy of the March 11, 1964 draft describes Number One as "slim and dark in a Nile Valley way," which probably meant the sort of Cleopatra-type "exotic beauty" often played in older American film and TV by dark-haired white women, the exemplar being Theda Bara, the silent-film actress whose screen persona was an exotic Egyptian vamp (indeed, she was the person the word "vamp" was coined for) but was actually born as Theodosia Burr Goodman in Cincinnati, just a couple of miles from where I'm sitting now.

 

[Kor]

The Memory Alpha article has a link to the actual document, and as Christopher noted, it does say "slim and dark in a Nile Valley way." Whoever wrote the Memory Alpha article either didn't understand what that meant in the context of the era, or didn't understand what "Nubian" means, if they thought the expression was synonymous.

Examples of that "Nile Valley" look from mid-twentieth century Hollywood (thus closer to TOS' time) would have included Debra Paget in "Princess of the Nile," Anne Baxter in "The Ten Commandments," and Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra."

Kor

 

[Phaser Two]

I think Memory Alpha is in error. My copy of the March 11, 1964 draft describes Number One as "slim and dark in a Nile Valley way," which probably meant the sort of Cleopatra-type "exotic beauty" often played in older American film and TV by dark-haired white women, the exemplar being Theda Bara, the silent-film actress whose screen persona was an exotic Egyptian vamp (indeed, she was the person the word "vamp" was coined for) but was actually born as Theodosia Burr Goodman in Cincinnati, just a couple of miles from where I'm sitting now.

That is a cool piece of trivia as I had never heard of Ms. Bara, but I'm pretty sure that the exemplar of a dark-haired white woman playing Cleopatra would be Elizabeth Taylor.

 

[Kor]

That is a cool piece of trivia as I had never heard of Ms. Bara, but I'm pretty sure that the exemplar of a dark-haired white woman playing Cleopatra would be Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor was probably more fresh in the public memory in the 1960s for that type of role, but that was just repeating a trope that had already been going on for decades.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

That is a cool piece of trivia as I had never heard of Ms. Bara, but I'm pretty sure that the exemplar of a dark-haired white woman playing Cleopatra would be Elizabeth Taylor.

Taylor was a latter-day exemplar, but Bara played Cleopatra onscreen 15 years before Taylor was born (in a film now unfortunately lost). Taylor was just following the "vamp" precedent Bara defined.

 

[Phaser Two]

Elizabeth Taylor was probably more fresh in the public memory in the 1960s for that type of role, but that was just repeating a trope that had already been going on for decades.

I'm saying that when your average person thinks of a dark-haired white woman playing Cleopatra, they're going to think of Elizabeth Taylor, regardless of any "trope."

 

[Kor]

I'm saying that when your average person thinks of a dark-haired white woman playing Cleopatra, they're going to think of Elizabeth Taylor, regardless of any "trope."

At the time of TOS, a lot more people would have been alive who remembered the silent film era, as well as various sound movies in the decades in between that had similar depictions of Egyptian queens or princesses. There were still pop culture references to Theda Bara in the 1960s, such as in The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy. So Theda Bara's career isn't just some trivia footnote.

Kor

 

[Phaser Two]

At the time of TOS, a lot more people would have been alive who remembered the silent film era, as well as various sound movies in the decades in between that had similar depictions of Egyptian queens or princesses. So Theda Bara's career isn't just some trivia footnote.

Thanks, but the words you're putting in my mouth aren't mine.

You're claiming that in about 1965-1966, someone in Hollywood wrote about a "Nile Valley woman" and didn't have primarily in mind Elizabeth Taylor, who starred in an absolutely iconic role as . . . Cleopatra, who looks just like what they were describing, and who starred in that film as Cleopatra in June of 1963. Right.

 

[Kor]

...
You're claiming that ...

No, I'm not. I already said that example would have been more fresh in the public memory. I actually cited the example of Elizabeth Taylor before you did.

Kor

 

[Greg Cox]

Trivia: "Theda Bara" was an anagram of "Arab Death." Her real name was Theodosia Goodman.

And just to make a Trek connection, there's a running gag about Theda Bara in Two Weeks with Love (1950), a musical comedy starring . . . Ricardo Montalban.

(In the movie, a naive young woman tries make herself more alluring by aping Theda Bara.)

 

[J.T.B.]

You're claiming that in about 1965-1966, someone in Hollywood wrote about a "Nile Valley woman" and didn't have primarily in mind Elizabeth Taylor, who starred in an absolutely iconic role as . . . Cleopatra, who looks just like what they were describing, and who starred in that film as Cleopatra in June of 1963. Right.

My guess is Taylor was too big a star at the time for most people to think of her as a "type."

 

[Greg Cox]

My guess is Taylor was too big a star at the time for most people to think of her as a "type."

Good point. It's not as though Taylor specialized in playing exotic Egyptian temptresses. Cleopatra was just one role of many -- and, honestly, something of a departure for her.

 

[Christopher]

Guys, guys, there's no sense in arguing over Bara vs. Taylor. They aren't mutually exclusive choices; they're two examples of the same trend. The whole point here is that it wasn't specific to any one person, that it was an established, widely accepted practice at the time to cast dark-haired white women as "exotic" Middle Eastern types, and that was what Roddenberry was presumably alluding to in the document.

Trivia: "Theda Bara" was an anagram of "Arab Death." Her real name was Theodosia Goodman.

I almost said the same thing, but I double-checked, and apparently the anagram story is disputed.

https://www.westadamsheritage.org/read/479

An urban legend discerned that her stage name could be an anagram for "Arab death," but Theda was her childhood nickname and Bara was her maternal grandmother's middle name.

Wikipedia claims, meanwhile, that "Bara" came from a relative named Barranger, but agrees with Theda being her childhood nickname.

 

[MAGolding]

The Memory Alpha article has a link to the actual document, and as Christopher noted, it does say "slim and dark in a Nile Valley way." Whoever wrote the Memory Alpha article either didn't understand what that meant in the context of the era, or didn't understand what "Nubian" means, if they thought the expression was synonymous.

Examples of that "Nile Valley" look from mid-twentieth century Hollywood (thus closer to TOS' time) would have included Debra Paget in "Princess of the Nile," Anne Baxter in "The Ten Commandments," and Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra."

Kor

And don't forget Joan Collins in Land of the Pharaohs (1955).

 

[ZapBrannigan]

It seems like Joan Collins or Elizabeth Taylor would have ended up lobster-red and peeling if they set foot outside their Egyptian palace. It's awful sunny at that latitude.

 

[MAGolding]

It seems like Joan Collins or Elizabeth Taylor would have ended up lobster-red and peeling if they set foot outside their Egyptian palace. It's awful sunny at that latitude.

Too bad nobody ever invented broad brimmd hats, royal canopies, or parasols in ancient Egypt. Or did they?