The Truth about Jeffrey Hunter

I had no idea about his wife.
What do you guys think?
Star Trek would have been completely different with him. Would Nimoy have found Spock the way he did with Shatner had Hunter taken the job?


Spockboy

 

Wow. Thanks for posting a link to that documentary. Somehow I had gotten it into my head Hunter died from injuries he got falling from a horse, filming some spaghetti western. Interesting to discover it was effectively from a misjudged practical special effect involving a car and concussion all stemmed from that.

I look at Bruce Greenwood's very good take on Pike, and think, Hunter could have loosened up more. Still a very different and more serious Captain than Kirk, but certainly as compelling. The mistake really was "The Cage" script, introducing your lead character as somebody very despondent and really looking for another career.

 

No doubt the character would have become more action-oriented and personable if the series had continued with Pike... basically the same character we got with Kirk. A pilot episode served as a proof of concept, not a final product.

Whether Spock and Vulcans (or whatever they might have decided to call his species) would have been focused on logic may have depended on whether or not Number One was kept as the logical, unemotional character. Spock might have been just a secondary character. Maybe the "big three" would have been Pike, Boyce and Number One.

Kor

 

Very surprised they didn't reference his role in The Searchers. Certainly better known than anything other than Trek that he ever did.

 

His portrayal of Jesus in King of Kings is also relatively well known.

 

Geez what a sad end.

Dunno how Hunter as Pike would have fared in the long run.I always considered his performance as very in the mould of those post war tough guys,all snippy and thin-lipped.
"Tired?You bet I'm tired."Could be from any Bogart movie.

Shatner,for all his faults was a more "modern" actor and IMO more credible as a twenty second century human.

 

I completely agree that Shatner really brought something special to the role, but if you watch Hunter's work he had a softness and a compassion (King of Kings) that the writer's would have explored I think. He came off a little too tough in the pilot, but Nimoy hadn't really found his character yet either.

Spockboy

 

Even the writers hadn't really found Spock's character yet.

Kor

 

THE WOMEN (someone had to )

 

We could have ended up with three years of Spock smiling and shouting!

Kor

 

A damned shame.

 

Despite his being described as emotionless, Spock did his share of smiling and screaming in WNMHGB and the next five or so episodes.

 

Jeffrey Hunter would of been good in where no has gone before 2nd pilot.

 

Hunter was cool. He gives that gritty frontier Western vibe whereas Shatner does something else with the role. With Hunter it probably would've sailed closer to that Western sensibility. Might've even earned Trek a cameo from the inestimable John Wayne, haha.

 

To quote the Duke... That'll be the day.

 

Great movie.


Spockboy

 

John Wayne in Trek.
...
John F'n Wayne.
...
[coolness level: 11/10]

 

Sorry such bad things happened to him. But I think Shatner was a better choice for captain.

 

I thought he fell down the stairs at home and died from the injuries he received a few days later...
JB

 

Sounds weird that someone could also have been involved in his death as well! Guess we'll never know? Wonder if he was ever asked to come back and play the disfigured Pike in The Menagerie? Guess not as it would have been beneath him...
JB