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Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

I remember George Takei in a two part SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN episode, where they went looking for the crashed plane of Steve Austin's real father.

That was only a one-parter -- "The Coward," the second-last episode of season 1. But it was loaded with Trek guests, also featuring France Nuyen (“Elaan of Troyius”), Ron Soble (“Spectre of the Gun”), and stuntman/actor Robert Herron (“Charlie X,” “The Savage Curtain”).
Well, I only saw it once, and that turns out to have been 40 years ago. I guess it was only a one parter. Don't know why I remember it as two.
 
I just rediscovered the 1971 James Garner western series "Nichols" on DVD. He plays a reluctant sheriff in an Arizona border town in the early 1900s. We get a light-hearted western with antique cars, motorcycles and machine guns. And young Margot Kidder's cleavage.

Anyhoo, episode 2 required a dignified Mexican revolutionary general, so, of course, it was Montalban. :)
 
^ I've been very interested in that series, being a big fan of Maverick and Rockford. It was a little before my time, but my mom always remembered it fondly. It is not available from Netflix, and last time I checked the only way to get it was a made-on-demand DVD set for $50, which I wasn't sure about spending. Now I see it is down to $38, so I guess I'll take the plunge. Thanks, Forbin!
 
So far, it's delightful.
That same year (1971) there was a second "20th Century western" called Bearcats, with Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole as agents driving around Arizona in a Stutz Bearcat. I got that on DVD too, and I gotta say it was pretty dismal.

(I suspect the genre was inspired by John Wayne's film "Big Jake", set in the same time period and released the same year).
 
^Interesting. I remember Rod Taylor in another sort of 20th-century Western, the short-lived 1986 TV series Outlaws, about a group of 19th-century frontier marshals who fell through a time rift into the present day and became private detectives (yes, seriously). It was created by Nicholas Corea, formerly a producer for Bill Bixby's The Incredible Hulk, and co-starred two Trek guests, Charles Napier (from TOS: "The Way to Eden" and DS9: "Little Green Men") and William Lucking (Furell from DS9 and an Orion merchant prince in ENT: "Bound"), as well as Richard Roundtree and Christine Belford.

I'd always known that Rod Taylor had prior experience with time travel (from George Pal's The Time Machine, of course), but I didn't know he had prior experience with the "20th-century Western" genre. Although, yes, I recognize that a Western set around the turn of the century is rather different from a time-travel piece.
 
There was also The Wild Bunch (1969), which was set in 1913.

And 1970's more light-hearted Ballad of Cable Hogue, also from Sam Peckinpah and set around the same time. I would guess those two would be the primary inspirations, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for Alias Smith and Jones and Coogan's Bluff for McCloud. A template like "Cable" would seem almost perfect for Garner's Maverick and Support Your Local Sheriff characters. Just a guess, though.
 
^Interesting. I remember Rod Taylor in another sort of 20th-century Western, the short-lived 1986 TV series Outlaws, about a group of 19th-century frontier marshals who fell through a time rift into the present day and became private detectives (yes, seriously). It was created by Nicholas Corea, formerly a producer for Bill Bixby's The Incredible Hulk, and co-starred two Trek guests, Charles Napier (from TOS: "The Way to Eden" and DS9: "Little Green Men") and William Lucking (Furell from DS9 and an Orion merchant prince in ENT: "Bound"), as well as Richard Roundtree and Christine Belford.

I'd always known that Rod Taylor had prior experience with time travel (from George Pal's The Time Machine, of course), but I didn't know he had prior experience with the "20th-century Western" genre. Although, yes, I recognize that a Western set around the turn of the century is rather different from a time-travel piece.

Somebody on another board brought up The Outlaws when I brought up Bearcats too. I'm afraid I don't remember that one. Looks like Rod Taylor's agent wasn't doing him any favors with these projects! :)
 
There was also The Wild Bunch (1969), which was set in 1913.

And 1970's more light-hearted Ballad of Cable Hogue, also from Sam Peckinpah and set around the same time. I would guess those two would be the primary inspirations, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for Alias Smith and Jones and Coogan's Bluff for McCloud. A template like "Cable" would seem almost perfect for Garner's Maverick and Support Your Local Sheriff characters. Just a guess, though.
Makes me wonder what inspired 'Hec Ramsey.' A Columbo style police detective circa 1900 (starring Richard Boone).
 
To get back to TOS, Friday afternoon's Emergency! on MeTV, had Ceiia (T'Pau) Lovsky as an elderly woman with a broken hip who did not want to leave her apartment- which was about to explode due to a gas leak. The director? Joe Pevney!

This was Ms Lovsky's next to last tv/movie credit... :(
 
So far on Gomer Pyle, USMC (funny show, by the way!), I've spotted:


Andrea the android...


and Larry Marvick.
 
OK - this might be marginal, but its still related to TOS.

The Hallmark Channel runs - and I mean RUNS - I Love Lucy six episodes a day, seven freaking days a week! Which means it takes a month or so for them do the whole series!

Sooo....this morning I happened to be watching, and the famous "Lucy Does a Television Commercial" a.k.a. Vitameatavegamin episode was playing. [Ricky gets to host a live variety show; Lucy of course wants to be on it; takes over the live commercial for a patent medicine that is actually 25% alcohol :techman: She of course has to do several rehearsals, etc - so surprise, she gets wasted]

Near the episode's end, they show Ricky getting ready to start his show, and when he goes in front of the camera, the booming voice of the director goes, "Ricky, move back a couple of feet, will you?" When I heard that. something clicked, and I realized - and I said it out loud - "That must be Marc Daniels!"

Of course, Daniels was the director of that show, as he was the director of the entire first season of Lucy. Which means he was director of both the first Lucy, and the first Trek ever shown.

So that was my 'ah HAH' moment of the day! :cool:
 
In "The Bionic Woman," the 2-parter on The Six Million Dollar Man that introduced Jaime Sommers, Steve and Jaime are menaced by Malachi Throne (Commodore Mendez) and Paul Carr (Lee Kelso). And of course Rudy Wells was played at the time (and for the last time) by Alan Oppenheimer, who'd show up several times on TNG, DS9, and VGR.
 
Some more guests from Gomer Pyle, USMC:


a rarely-seen crying Bela Oxmyx...


a de-cellerated Deela...


Vina, decent, honest and proper......


Geologist D'amato in need of engine work.
 
I was watching "Gambit," an old heist movie with Michael Caine and Shirley Maclaine, when who shows up as an ominous Arab security chief but Arnold Moss, aka Anton Karidian, aka Kodos the Executioner. He's made up to look Middle Eastern, but is instantly recognizable.
 
Another TCM moment: In Walk, Don't Run, a 1966 Cary Grant comedy set during the Tokyo Olympics, a young George Takei pops up briefly as a Japanese police captain, complete with a thick Japanese accent! The accent actually threw me off a bit, so I had to squint at the TV screen to make sure it was him . . ..
 
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