What Famous Guest Star Should Have Been On ST, But Wasn't?

[KirksStuntMan]

ST had many famous actors/actresses cast in their 3 seasons, but what other famous star would you have liked to seen in an episode?

My choice is John Wayne portraying a Klingon. That would have been so cool.

 

[scotpens]

There’s already a thread on this topic, but it’s a bit over three months old, so I guess a new one is kosher.

My choice is John Wayne portraying a Klingon. That would have been so cool.

Ask and you shall receive.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think a more likely scenario would've been a cameo as this week's admiral who gets to tear Kirk a new one...

 

[MarsWeeps]

I always wondered why Jeffrey Hunter didn't return to play wheelchair Pike.

 

[Christopher]

I always wondered why Jeffrey Hunter didn't return to play wheelchair Pike.

No doubt the same reason he didn't stay on as the series lead in the first place: because he and his wife decided that he should be a movie actor and not lower himself to do series television.

Besides, if Hunter had come back, Pike might not have been in the wheelchair at all, or certainly would've been a lot less debilitated. Though Roddenberry did a good job passing it off as a story-motivating device, it seems likely that Pike's silence and severe radiation burns were a way to conceal the recasting.


Let's see... given how many Trek cast members showed up on Mission: Impossible, it's a shame we never got a Trek guest appearance by Peter Graves, Greg Morris, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, or Peter Lupus. Although Morris's children Phil and Iona appeared in "Miri" and the adult Phil Morris -- who followed in his father's footsteps as a star of the 1988 M:I revival -- would go on to appear in The Search for Spock, DS9 (twice), and VGR, while Iona Morris made one guest appearance in VGR.

 

[bbailey861]

Love the Duke idea. I would have liked to see an episode with Phil Silvers in it.......(now awaiting the Sgt Bilko jokes).

 

[MarsWeeps]

I always wondered why Jeffrey Hunter didn't return to play wheelchair Pike.

No doubt the same reason he didn't stay on as the series lead in the first place: because he and his wife decided that he should be a movie actor and not lower himself to do series television.

So why do the pilot in the first place? I don't think his movie career exactly took off afterwards. Also, IMDB shows that he "lowered himself" to make quite a few appearances in TV shows after the Trek pilot so why not one more appearance as Pike?

 

[JarodRussell]

James Garner would have been great, maybe as Captain of another starship.

 

[Christopher]

So why do the pilot in the first place? I don't think his movie career exactly took off afterwards. Also, IMDB shows that he "lowered himself" to make quite a few appearances in TV shows after the Trek pilot so why not one more appearance as Pike?

Look, I didn't know the man, I just know what I've read. According to Inside Star Trek, p. 63, when they invited Hunter to a screening of the pilot in hopes of convincing him to do a second (since a second pilot was unprecedented and his contract therefore didn't have an option for one), his wife came in his stead, and after the screening she said (according to Herb Solow's recollection), "This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do, and besides, it wouldn't be good for his career. Jeff Hunter is a movie star."

It certainly wouldn't be the first time that an actor has walked away from a TV gig in pursuit of movie stardom that failed to materialize. Just ask Maclean Stevenson, David Caruso, and Michelle Forbes. And whether it was about movies or not, apparently Hunter just decided after making "The Cage" that he wanted nothing to do with Star Trek. Maybe he did the pilot for the money but decided he wasn't comfortable with the idea of being associated with a genre show. Maybe he didn't get along with Roddenberry. Who knows? The man's long dead. All we know is that one anecdote; the rest is conjecture. But it seems pretty clear that he just didn't want anything more to do with the show. He wouldn't even attend the screening of his own pilot.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Martin Landau as a childhood friend of Spock's (the only one who didn't reject him as a half-breed) who turns out to be a deep-cover Romulan spy planted on Vulcan as a child.

Elizabeth Montgomery as the first female Starship captain.

Werner Klemperer as an incompetent Federation bureaucrat.

Bob Denver as the first Ferengi to appear on Star Trek.

Jim Backus & Natalie Schafer as the immensely wealthy, eccentric and insoucient monarchs of a planet that the Federation and Klingons are fighting over.

Barbara Eden as a hot new yeoman in a beehive who turns out to be a prank-prone alien with godlike powers.

Larry Hagman as a buddy of Kirk's from Academy days who is bitter at having been wrongfully given a dishonorable discharge for some mysterious incident when he was a starship captain, who becomes a rogue space pirate and causes ongoing trouble for Starfleet.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens and Jack Kelly as the command crew of another starship.

 

[Pauln6]

Phyllis Diller as McCoy's ex-wife

 

[KirksStuntMan]

Phyllis Diller as McCoy's ex-wife

She's tougher than the Gorn, nastier than the Klingons, and uglier than the Gorgan. Hmmmm....no wonder McCoy got a Starfleet divorce from this hideous creature.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I dont think Starfleet can grant divorces.

I'd rather Mrs McCoy be played by a nice, attractive woman, like Liz Montgomery. Everyone in the crew would be wondering why McCoy divorced her.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Behind every beautiful woman, there's a man who's sick and tired of her bullshit.

 

[Captain Robert April]

So why do the pilot in the first place? I don't think his movie career exactly took off afterwards. Also, IMDB shows that he "lowered himself" to make quite a few appearances in TV shows after the Trek pilot so why not one more appearance as Pike?

Look, I didn't know the man, I just know what I've read. According to Inside Star Trek, p. 63, when they invited Hunter to a screening of the pilot in hopes of convincing him to do a second (since a second pilot was unprecedented and his contract therefore didn't have an option for one), his wife came in his stead, and after the screening she said (according to Herb Solow's recollection), "This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do, and besides, it wouldn't be good for his career. Jeff Hunter is a movie star."

It certainly wouldn't be the first time that an actor has walked away from a TV gig in pursuit of movie stardom that failed to materialize. Just ask Maclean Stevenson, David Caruso, and Michelle Forbes. And whether it was about movies or not, apparently Hunter just decided after making "The Cage" that he wanted nothing to do with Star Trek. Maybe he did the pilot for the money but decided he wasn't comfortable with the idea of being associated with a genre show. Maybe he didn't get along with Roddenberry. Who knows? The man's long dead. All we know is that one anecdote; the rest is conjecture. But it seems pretty clear that he just didn't want anything more to do with the show. He wouldn't even attend the screening of his own pilot.

My understanding was that part of the impasse had to do with Hunter wanting enough time off to do the occasional movie, and the studio wouldn't allow it. His wife only added fuel to the fire.

Besides, in a few years, he auditioned for the role of Mike Brady on "The Brady Bunch", so clearly his attitude towards doing a tv series had changed.

 

[MarsWeeps]

Besides, in a few years, he auditioned for the role of Mike Brady on "The Brady Bunch", so clearly his attitude towards doing a tv series had changed.

Wow...I can just see it...

To Bobby: "You clean your room up or I'll twist your head off!"

To Alice: "All I wanted for that moment was to get my hands around your neck!"

To Greg after he wrecks the car: "I'm filling my mind with a picture of beating your huge, misshapen head to pulp!"

To the lady that greets him when he gets off the plane in Hawaii: "All I want to do is get my hands on you. Can you read these thoughts? Images of hate, killing?"

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Trelane's parents who contact the Enterprise warning them that thier son has temporarily disabled their powers and he is on his way to a Federation Colony.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entetne
/\

 

[Greg Cox]

I dont think Starfleet can grant divorces.

I'd rather Mrs McCoy be played by a nice, attractive woman, like Liz Montgomery. Everyone in the crew would be wondering why McCoy divorced her.

It was the way she twitched her nose all the time . . . .

 

[WRStone]

Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, and Dan Blocker as Bela Okmyx, Tepo, Kalo, and Jojo Krako (respectively) in "A Piece Of the Action."

And while I'm at it ... a cameo by Jack Webb as Admiral Fitzpatrick.