Jeffrey Hunter

I've read several contradictory accounts as to why Hunter did not return as Captain. Some say he had other things going on, while others say his wife/agent viewed the pilot and said, "Jeffrey will have no part in this!"

Can anyone help me out?

 

The answer is #2. Plus he had a severe drinking problem that ultimately led to the head injury that let to his death. Sad story.

(There is a Jeffrey Hunter episode of Biography out there on the Biography Channel...that's my source for this response.)

 

For what it's worth.

 

Interesting. Can you tell me more about that bio? I've never seen it.

 

Thanks. According to Wiki:

"Hunter, deciding to concentrate on motion pictures such as Brainstorm, declined to film a second Star Trek pilot requested by NBC in 1965. But later that year Hunter was filming the pilot for yet another NBC series, the espionage thriller Journey Into Fear, which the network failed to pick up."

 

Sadly not much more than that...I really only had an interest in him as relates to Trek, so I don't honestly remember much else beyond that.

(Apparently, however, sometime after his wife had turned down Trek, he (while intoxicated) slipped and fell, hitting his head against a stairstep. He never actually recovered the head injury and ultimately passed away because of it. His alcoholism was only an INDIRECT cause of death...but he's still just as dead.)

 

Wiki says it was a stroke not a drunken fall, so I was curious.

 

Well, it was 4 or more years ago on the TV show...maybe they've revised it since then. Hard to say.

 

I don't think it was Biography. IIRC, it was on E: True Hollywood Scandals, or whatever the title was. Actually, MemoryAlpha's article on Hunter, especially the portion dealing with his death, is superior to Wikipedia's.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Special:Search?search=Jeffrey+Hunter

Sir Rhosis

 

It may have been just that...it's been enough years to cloud the specifics (and even though I never kept a digitized copy, I DID get a C&D slapdown from Paramount when I posted it on Usenet).

 

so young! so sad.

 

He was definitely a hottie ...(and made a great starship captain, I think).

I know that TOS had their politics behind-the-scenes, but I think it would have been interesting to see (if Hunter was asked back; again, depending on the politics of the show) how Hunter would have worked off of Shatner...

Other than what we saw in 'The Menagerie.'

 

Which wasn't even Hunter.

 

It's interesting... you know, if Hunter had stayed with Star Trek, he probably would have lived. Or at least the "thread of events" that lead to his fall would have been shifted and the fall would have been averted. But who knows if that would have introduced something else to take out Hunter... no way to know.

Judging Hunter from just the Menagerie, I couldn't see him as the long term Captain. But... after watching the remastered Cage episode, I changed my mind. In various moments, you see Hunter smile and show more dimension. He really was a talented actor. His persona was definitely similar to Picard. I could see it working out... maybe even a better Captain than Shatner.

The last straw for Star Trek was really the executive decision to shift it to Friday night at 10pm for the 3rd season. Because of that, scripts were changed... since the previous target audience (the young, intelligent, and "hip" crowd) would be out socializing on a Friday night, not watching Star Trek at home. No VCR's back then either. Thus, the writing was impacted... and Gene lost interest as well. He knew that Star Trek was on the way out, and so he became a back seat executive producer. Ratings were lousy because of these changes, too. It's too bad... we would have had at least a couple more seasons of the original series format before it was retired.

The rating system wasn't very accurate back then... the 2nd season ratings for Star Trek were low. But the letter writing campaign was enough to push forward for a 3rd season. It was a record turn out of letters too, more than any other show. Clearly, something was amiss with how ratings were gathered. Anyway, my whole point was that if the ratings had been better, the show would have lasted longer... and I think Hunter would have been a great captain for that run.

 

Henry Herman McKinnies, Jr. -- that's a good trivia question. He grew up not too far from here, in Milwaukee.

 

Actually I remember Gene Roddenberry saying NBC promised to move Season 3 of Star Trek from Thursday Nights at 8:00 PM to Sunday Nights at 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM and Gene in return promised NBC Season 3 would be better than the first 2 seasons. But the wife of an NBC Exec loved the show "Gunsmoke", so "Gunsmoke" did not get canceled and that is why Star Trek was moved to Friday Nights at 10:00 PM. At that point Gene threatened to walk away from the show if NBC was going to move his show to Friday Nights. So when NBC did move it Gene said he only had his word/integrity, so he left the show but was still billed as Exec Producer.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
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His wife was a bit bossy too...

made alot of demands on the studio and the director and makeup people.

He looks better on his left side." You need to give him better close ups blah blah blah... wifely diarreha of the mouth...

Another reason why he was not asked back....

 

Oh Bull.

We've discussed this before. Hunter WAS asked back, as NBC was reportedly ok with him. His wife, Sandy Bartlett, showed up for a screening of The Cage and was polite but firm that Jeff was going to do movies. This is cited in Inside Star Trek, and there's no mention of her being on set in that book. Frankly, these oft repeated stories about her are tiresome, as I've never seen anyone back them up with a reputable source...and Shatner's Memories books ain't reputable if that's where this is coming from.

 

Still...I would like to have seen Hunter perforn in some of the later episodes. He had more depth than Shatner, but I think TOS may have appealed to wider audiences with 'The Shat'