Hair Changes in the 3rd season
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Maybe just to show that two years had passed. People don't keep the same hair forever.
Nichols wore a wig provided by the studio. I don't recall the specific change she underwent.
I read a Jimmy Doohan interview once where he complained about his Trek hair. At the start of the third season the hairdresser just combed it straight back (as in "Spock's Brain"), which he felt "looked like hell." Then they styled it for him ("The Lights of Zetar") and he was happier with that.
I read a Jimmy Doohan interview once where he complained about his Trek hair. At the start of the third season the hairdresser just combed it straight back (as in "Spock's Brain"), which he felt "looked like hell." Then they styled it for him ("The Lights of Zetar") and he was happier with that.
He was hard on the toupees.
Scotty's new-but-not-improved haircut was forehead-friendly but made him look much older. They changed Chapel's hair color once or twice as well, notably in TURNABOUT INTRUDER.
This needs pics, esp. for Scotty post-brush cut. I remember the brush, I just can't remember him different after it than he was before.
Someone here was lamenting once that the producers just got lazy and stopped making Chapel so blonde. She's definitely darker in S3, not that it really matters. Shatner looked way better wi short hair imho, but 1969 was not 1965. Just considered the likely hairstyle bullet we dodged that was Phase II.
Someone here was lamenting once that the producers just got lazy and stopped making Chapel so blonde. She's definitely darker in S3, not that it really matters. Shatner looked way better wi short hair imho, but 1969 was not 1965. Just considered the likely hairstyle bullet we dodged that was Phase II.
I read the same interview, but I don't remember where it was.
The hair was certainly longer, that's for sure. I always thought it was because of the times. '69 definitely had longer hair than previous years. If the show had lasted longer, by '72 it probably would have been shoulder length.
I'm thinking Brady Bunch perms.
The hair was certainly longer, that's for sure. I always thought it was because of the times. '69 definitely had longer hair than previous years. If the show had lasted longer, by '72 it probably would have been shoulder length.
I grabbed screen shots of each of the twenty-five episodes where Majel Barrett played Nurse Christine Chapel, so I could track the evolution of her hair.
First off, Majel Barrett, as Nurse Christine Chapel, was in three episodes in the First Season. (Well, she actually played Nurse Christine Ducheaux in "The Naked Time.")
“The Naked Time” (Episode 7):
“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (Episode 10):
“Operation—Annihilate!” (Episode 29)
You can see that in her first appearance, she had slightly longer hair and it was kind of a two-tone hairstyle: platinum blond—almost silver, mixed with some darker brown. For her second and third appearances, she had a shorter wavy style—and her hair was a honey blond. But interestingly, she only had three appearances as Nurse Chapel in all of the First Season.
Majel had more appearances in the Second Season. She had nine appearances:
“Amok Time (Episode 34):
“The Changeling” (Episode 37):
“The Deadly Years” (Episode 40):
“Journey to Babel” (Episode 44):
“A Private Little War” (Episode 45):
“Obsession” (Episode 47):
“The Immunity Syndrome” (Episode 48):
“By Any Other Name” (Episode 50):
“Return to Tomorrow” (Episode 51)
For the Second Season, Majel had a wig that was this same honey blond—almost platinum, but it was worn up—in a bouffant style. And although her hair was unadorned for the first episode of the Second Season (“Amok Time”), she seems to have a braid in her hair going across the crown for most of the Second Season episodes. This small braid disappears in the last two episodes of the second season—“By Any Other Name” and “Return to Tomorrow.”
Most of Majel’s appearances as Nurse Chapel came in the Third Season. She had thirteen appearances in the Third Season—which is more than her First and Second Season appearances combined.
“Elaan of Troyius” (Episode 57):
“The Paradise Syndrome” (Episode 58):
“The Enterprise Incident” (Episode 59):
“And the Children Shall Lead” (Episode 60):
“Spock’s Brain” (Episode 61):
“The Tholian Web” (Episode 64):
“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky” (Episode 65):
“Plato’s Stepchildren” (Episode 67):
“Wink of an Eye” (Episode 68):
“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (Episode 70):
“The Lights of Zetar” (Episode 73):
“The Way to Eden” (Episode 75):
“Turnabout Intruder” (Episode 79):
For the Third Season, Majel had a shorter style cut in a bob. And again, it was honey blond. The exception is the very last episode of the series. Majel’s hair style was pretty much the same that it had been throughout the entire Third Season, but for the final episode, her hair was brunette.
There’s no real commentary here. It’s just tracking the path of Majel’s hair through the three years of The Original Series. I thought folks might be interested.
For all you Nurse Chapel groupies, slide show is at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157607591167955/show/
Thank you, Greg!
NBC rejected Majel after viewing the first pilot because they did not see her as having much talent or charisma. But she was Roddenberry's extramarital girlfriend at the time, so he hid her under a wig and snuck her back in the show.
I think her hair looked best in "The Cage" and worst in "The Naked Time."
I assume that when "Turnabout Intruder" was filmed, there was a general sense of resignation and loss of enthusiasm knowing it was the last episode. So Majel simply didn't bother wearing a wig.
Edit: now that I look again, that probably is a wig in "Turnabout," which makes the color change inexplicable.
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As I recall the story, by the time of Turnabout Intruder Barrett was under the impression she was through with the series. She basically stole all the Chapel wigs (which were the property of the studio) and took them home. Well they needed to film an additional scene with the Chapel character for Turnabout Intruder and the wigs were gone, so the brown hair that you see in Turnabout Intruder is Barrett's own natural hair.
She was referred to as Ducheaux only in a early draft of the script.
^I wonder what she did with them. Maybe she made a big blonde throw rug.
As I recall the story, by the time of Turnabout Intruder Barrett was under the impression she was through with the series. She basically stole all the Chapel wigs (which were the property of the studio) and took them home. Well they needed to film an additional scene with the Chapel character for Turnabout Intruder and the wigs were gone, so the brown hair that you see in Turnabout Intruder is Barrett's own natural hair.
If that's the case, the stylist got her real hair looking just like a high-end lady's wig. Not that I'm any kind of expert.
The only reasons I can imagine her wanting the Chapel wigs are if her own hair was thinning, which happens to a lot of women, or if she imagined going to sci-fi conventions as Nurse Chapel. [The dedicated Star Trek convention hadn't been invented yet, and in January of 1969 nobody suspected it ever would be.]
For his first few episodes, Walter Koenig had to wear a Max Factor lady's wig that they chopped down to Monkees length, as was the fashion at the time:
This scan is from a 1993 TV Guide article by William Shatner.
This scan is from a 1993 TV Guide article by William Shatner.
As I recall the story, by the time of Turnabout Intruder Barrett was under the impression she was through with the series. She basically stole all the Chapel wigs (which were the property of the studio) and took them home. Well they needed to film an additional scene with the Chapel character for Turnabout Intruder and the wigs were gone, so the brown hair that you see in Turnabout Intruder is Barrett's own natural hair.
She was referred to as Ducheaux only in a early draft of the script.
My June 28, 1967 Final Draft shooting script has "Ducheaux." I can't find any version of the script with "Chapel." (I don't know why they would have bothered to change her last name to Chapel. She's never addressed nor referred to by her last name in the script. It would have been a name change for no real reason.)
I'd guess GR fell in love with the pun on Sistine Chapel. This was right near the height of the James Bond craze, with its girl name puns. James Bond was bigger then than we can really imagine now, because we have so many outlets for enthusiasm today that nothing can get beyond a certain size. But in 1966, Bond was a global entertainment mania.
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