From: Maurice Molyneaux
To: REDACTED
Sent: Thu, Nov 11, 2021 10:16 pm
Subject: Is this still Walter?
Hope this email address still works.
I asked you a few questions about Bill Theiss back a decade ago. Anyway, was going through old issues of Variety and found a review of the film
Strange Lovers that you were in. Never been able to find the film, but thought I'd send you the review in the event you didn't have it.
Best,
Maurice Molyneaux
On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 4:20 PM REDACTED wrote:
"Strange Lovers" was my first hollywood project. That's how I met Star Trek casting director Joe D'Agosta. He was an actor on it too. Fortunately, the review type is so tiny I can barely make it out. I read for it, turned it down, recommended another actor for it. He died before shooting started and then i was talked back into doing it. I certainly wouldn't waste any more time looking for it.
Walter
Maurice Molyneaux
Thu, May 12, 2022, 2:07 PM
to REDACTED
Hi again Walter,
We are currently setting up an interview with Joe D'Agosta about his career (not Trek-centric), and scouring the trades as part of our research. I know you previously indicated "Fortunately, the review type is so tiny I can barely make it out," about the Variety review of Strange Lovers I'd sent, but we ran across a better review in BoxOffice, and I include the text of same here just in case you'd like to see it (emphasis mine).
1964-03-02
Strange Lovers
Ratio: 1.85-1
Dramatic Trilogy
Mast Prod.-Gillman Co.-States Rights 73 Minutes Rel.
Mast Productions Robert Stambler, busy of late in network television, and William Mahan, one-time child star, most recently responsible for packaging Universal's "No Man Is an Island," have coproduced an attraction of certainly controversial content, entertainment best recommended for mature audiences in the more cosmopolitan centers. In three sharply defined, harshly realistic episodes, peopled out by different players, coproducers Stambler and Mahan with Stambler doubling as director, have concerned themselves with homosexuals, both male and female, against a diverse background of the contemporary American Southwest. Rarely attempted within sphere-and-scope of American moviemaking, the trilogy emerges as a dramatic blockbuster, sparing nothing in strikingly-effective continuity, nor steering clear of implied and suggested behavior. It might be well to screen this for opinion-makers and other responsible parties prior to opening day, subsequent advertising and promotion approach to be predicated upon suggestions. Warren Barker's musical score is memorable, and F. Said's photographic effects are properly moody.
Walter Koenig, Sally le Cuyer, Elaine Kaye, Joe d'Agosta. Arlene Hedrick, Sylvia Brenner.
Hope you're well!
Best,
Maurice
REDACTED
Thu, May 12, 2022, 2:35 PM
to me
Maurice,
Nice of you to go to the trouble of sending the review along. Funny, what was considered controversial and a blockbuster in the day. It did play at the Apollo Arts Theater on the east end of Hollywood Blvd. back in the day. I (The theater has been gone for a long time) also saw it listed as playing on 42nd St in New York around the same time. Don't know if Joe knows that. Give him my love. Very responsible for my career.
Walter
From: Maurice Molyneaux
To: REDACTED
Sent: Thu, May 12, 2022 2:57 pm
Subject: Re: Is this still Walter?
Hi Walter,
I am pinging Joe [D'Agosta] all the time, so I'll be happy to convey your message. I assume you have his current contact info? If not, his number is REDACTED and his email REDACTED
He tells us he's working on a memoir, so we've dialed our research up to 11 to help him out by scouring the trades, and have also agreed to give him the raw transcript of our Zoom interview after we do it so he can remember what he told us for his book.
Speaking of memoirs, I may have said this way back when, but of the Trek memoirs I've read I found yours the most human and relatable and least self-serving. I re-read Chekov's Enterprise several times for your witty observations on the monotony and excitement of a film set.
On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 5:03 PM REDACTED wrote:
Maurice,
Thanks for the up to date info on Joe. I will be inviting him to lunch one of these days.
Best,
Walter
From: Maurice Molyneaux
To: REDACTED
Sent: Wed, Jun 1, 2022 12:27 am
Subject: Re: Is this still Walter?
Hi Walter:
By the way, I forgot to ask you if you remember Jonathan Goldsmith/Lippe, aka "The Most Interesting Man In the World." I ask because In his memoir, Stay Interesting: I Don't Always Tell Stories About My Life, but When I Do They're True and Amazing, he relates that when he first moved to Hollywood (after acting in New York), he stayed with a young actor named Walter Koenig (“His role on Star Trek and his success were much deserved and truly could not have happened to a nicer guy,” says Goldsmith).
Not sure if you were aware of his printing that.
Maurice
From: REDACTED
Date: Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: Is this still Walter?
To: REDACTED
I knew Jonathan in New York. We were at the Neighborhood Playhouse together. He came out to L.A. about a year after I did and we hung out together for several years back in the sixties. Ran into him again a couple of years back.Not that it matters but we never lived together.
Walter
On Monday, October 23, 2023, 01:43:32 PM PDT, Maurice Molyneaux wrote:
Hi Walter,
While doing research on various Trek projects that never went anywhere, I was reading Gene's 1975 STAR TREK II script, aka The God Thing. I recall at one point you had written a chunk of a novelization of that after Gene abandoned it. I was curious if you still had it, and how different the story was evolving from the script.
I realize it's been a long time and you may not remember much.
Hope you're well.
Maurice
On Oct 23, 2023, at 5:12 PM, REDACTED wrote:
Gene asked me to write the second half of the novelization. I did it and he was initially enthusiastic. This was to be in place of the screenplay that Paramount rejected. When he got a chance for a second crack at a screenplay he abandoned plans for the novel.
W.
