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

[DeepSpaceWine]

- Raymond Burr as the defense consul for Kirk in "Court-Martial"
- Alan Hale Jr. as an admiral. "Kirrrrrrrkk!". Or more fittingly as a friendly, bumbling schemer, somewhere between Mudd and Stanley Jones' character
- Fred Gwynne, John Astin, Jackie Coogan, Robert Stack, Dan Blocker, Jack Elam, Burgess Meredith as a villain, Bruce Gordon (mighta made a better mobster in "A Piece of the Action"), Lois Nettleton, Neil Hamilton (he appeared in Outer Limits and did a nice job there), Victor Buono, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar (she was at the height of her beauty in the '60s).
- George Maharis (Buz from Route 66). He could show Shatner how's it done, giving an impassioned speech upstaging Kirk while Kirk chews the scenery.
- The Fish Man from the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It could be an aquatic Arena for Kirk and the Fish Man. Throw in Helen Noel swimming around that waterworld too. Or how about a real battle... Helen Noel vs. Julie Newmar playing some kind of alien to 'free' Kirk from his 'imprisonment' on a planet full of beautiful women. I believe the viewer response would be


And I would have liked more Marianna Hill and a Season 3 appearance for Harry Mudd.

 

[Orac]

Robby the Robot should have appeared in at least one episode.

Adam West would have made a good Starship Captain.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Um, Julie Newmar was on Star Trek.

A little something entitled "Friday's Child" ring a bell?

 

[Christopher]

Vincent Price as the Klingon emperor. Would've been awesome. (Yes, we know now there was no Klingon emperor at the time, but that hadn't been established yet.)

 

[Captain Robert April]

"Empire" does tend to imply an emperor, so...

 

[Mysterion]

Boris Karloff (a scientist of some sort)
Fess Parker (a Starfleet Admiral, or maybe a colonial leader)
Martin Milner (a contemporary of Kirk)
Diana Rigg (anything as long as it is in a Theiss-designed costume)

 

[Bixby]

Checking what was on TV during that time period, it would have been awesome to have as guest-stars:
1) Kurt Russell (at 11, he'd co-starred with Elvis in 1962, doing the odd TV guest spot until Disney featured him in 1969)
2) Dennis hopper (he was persona non grata in Hollywood in the early 60's, but had a small part in Cool Hand Luke in '67)
3) David Hedison of Voyage to the bottom of the Sea (was on that show until '68, but he'd've been cool)
4) Bill Bixby or Ray Walston (but both were on CBS for My Favorite Martian)
5) Ed Asner (he appeared on Mission Impossible, but not ST)
6) Harry dean stanton (also did Cool Hand Luke at that time)
7) Lloyd Bochner (awesome character actor)
8) Telly Savalas (did The Dirty dozen in '67, but was doing TV guest-starring roles just before, notably Combat)
9) Burgess Meredith (joining Frank Gorshin and Julie Newmar, but he was the best actor of all of them)
10) Lee Majors (doing the Big valley for ABC, but if Shatner could guest-star on Valley, why not Lee? can you imagine the cockfight between those two? )
11) Ron Howard (was finishing up the Andy Griffith Show at the time. He was about 13, I guess he'd have been on the awful Melvin Belli episode)
12) Guy Williams (was on Lost in space for CBS, but I'd have loved my favorite Zorro to be on, especially since Guy had so little to do the second season onward)
13) Leslie nielsen (still in serious mode, but had just finished Peyton Place and other guest spots)
14) James B. Sikking (he did TV back then, so why not 20 years before ST 3 ?)

and certainly NOT least
15)Diana Rigg (unfortunately doing TV's Avengers until 1968, just a year or two before she did Bond), ooooh, that catsuit!!

 

[jayrath]

Ross Martin!

 

[7thsealord]

Boris Karloff (a scientist of some sort)

According to David Gerrold, when writing 'Trouble With Tribbles', one "alternate" idea he had was for the "Cyrano Jones" character to be this sweet, well-meaning old guy - ideally to be played by Boris Karloff.
He would have a bunch of pet Tribbles and often gave ones to other people to make them happy (being more or less unaware of their breeding problem).

Much as I enjoy Cyrano Jones as he appeared, this is an intriguing 'what-if'.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^
That would have been pretty cool.

 

[KirksStuntMan]

Raquel Welch, in a 3rd season episode where the budget was so low that Bill Theiss ended up using 2 of Bill Shatner's toupees for her costume.

 

[scotpens]

Raquel Welch, in a 3rd season episode where the budget was so low that Bill Theiss ended up using 2 of Bill Shatner's toupees for her costume.

Or they could have just unraveled Janice Rand’s old wig.

. . . Diana Rigg (anything as long as it is in a Theiss-designed costume)

YESSSSS!!

Burgess Meredith would have been a good alternate casting choice for Samuel T. Cogley in “Court Martial.”

And had Susan Oliver not gotten the part, Yvette Mimieux would have been an obvious choice for Vina.

 

[Redfern]

The Fish Man from the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

You reminded me of of an endearing childhood incident. Mego had just released the 8 inch Trek dolls and my buddy Kyle had purchased a Kirk. I had to let my allowance to accrue before I could get a Spock figure. Until that time, we pretended Spock was on an "exchange posting" and a semi-aquatic species was temporarily assigned to the Enterprise. It was an "off brand" Mego scaled figure of the Gill-Man with wire-core arms and legs. (Recent research about this particular figure lead me to discover this particular version was meant to be a Gill-Woman! That would explain why it had such a narrow waist and wide hips! Oy!)

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

Checking what was on TV during that time period, it would have been awesome to have as guest-stars:
...
4) Bill Bixby or Ray Walston (but both were on CBS for My Favorite Martian)
...
13) Leslie nielsen (still in serious mode, but had just finished Peyton Place and other guest spots)
...

I was thinking that too or perhaps Jerry Lewis as his alien character Kreton, from the 1960 film "Visit to a small planet". I would image the Enterprise picks up an alien distress call, finds the spacecraft, then uses a tractor beam to pull Kreton's craft inside the Hangar Bay. The Enterprise proceeds to Kreton's home planet. While Scotty is making repairs to Kreton's spacecraft high jinks ensue onboard the Enterprise via Kreton who is impervious to the Vulcan nerve pinch and a phaser's heavy stun setting. Jerry Lewis did do an episode of the Ben Casey tv series in 1965.

You mentioned Leslie Nielsen, but how about Earl Holliman as a leading man type to go up against Kirk? Holliman was in Forbidden Planet and in an episode of Twilight Zone" (the "Where Is Everybody?" episode).


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[meumar]

I second Diana Rigg!!! She was the first person I thought of and then someone already mentioned her!

 

[meumar]

Also Charlton Heston would have been awesome!

 

[scotpens]

Also Charlton Heston would have been awesome!

“Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty Gorn!”

 

[Uxi]

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

I think this is the winner. Love the idea of Heston, too.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I've got that covered...

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

I like the idea of Charlton Heston in TOS too. Back in the late 1970s at Star Trek conventions we fans would talk about Star Trek and Planet of the Apes as two entertaining science fiction shows that if combined would be a good idea. I think one idea was to have the Enterprise visit an alternate universe where Apes ruled over Earth.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\