by George Takei
It is a unique human relationship, that of an actor and his agent. It is a partnership between exaggerated opposites—one highly visible, the other anonymous. One the recipient of extravagant accolades or spotlighted ignominy, the other, nameless and holding only uncredited success or camouflaged failures. Yet these two opposites are inseparably bound together for survival, tied only by the thin, tensile nerve strings of necessity.
The strength of that bond is constantly tested. It is tested in the belief the agent must sustain in his client’s talent through brutal appraisals of the actor’s age, height, weight, or voice by crass casting directors. It is tested in the perspective the actor must maintain when his achievements are lauded and applauded by a capricious industry. It is tested by every compliment and hypocrisy, every rejection and duplicitous praise. It is tested by the kind of deviltry only the glamorously insecure and subversive workings of Hollywood can conjure up. Ultimately, the strength of that bond lies in the solidity of mutual trust. Out of necessity, there may be some artifice involved in the dance between such opposites, but at its core, the essential element in the choreography of egos between actor and agent is trust.
With Fred and me, there was yet another bond in our relationship. We were both Japanese Americans. Although of different generations, we had a common history. While I was a boy growing up behind barbed wires, Fred was wearing the same uniform as the soldiers standing guard over us. He had gone from the internment camp at Gila, Arizona, to become a medical corpsman with the United States Third Army in Germany. He proved our Americanism on the battlefields of Europe and now was working to strengthen our image in films, as the only Japanese American theatrical agent in Hollywood. Although it remained unspoken between us, we knew we shared a mission beyond our individual careers. Our battlefield of the film business now required different maneuvers, other tactics, and a special trust. Fred, the experienced veteran of Europe, was also experienced on this field of action. So he was my agent. I trusted in him.
When we walked out into the midafternoon sunshine of Sunset Boulevard, I did something I hadn’t ever done with him. I dropped the protective professional facade, that shield for the ego. I made a naked confession: “Fred, I’ve got to have that role. I desperately want that role.”
He put a reassuring, big-brotherly arm around my shoulder and repeated, “Don’t worry, George. I have good vibes about this one for you.” Suddenly, that echo from House on K Street. At times like that, the actor-agent trust is severely tested. I slept very poorly that night.
* * *
When I’m under stress, I run. The following morning, I was running—long and hard.
I drove up to Bronson Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, parked in a leafy glen, stripped down to my running trunks, and started jogging. There was a gentle grade up a bridle path that became steeper as it neared the top and then leveled out to a long, undulating trail along the rim of a range overlooking the Los Angeles basin on one side and the San Fernando Valley on the other. The letters of the Hollywood sign seemed to be sunbathing on the hillside. By the time I reached the rock outcropping that was my marker for the halfway point to the rim top, sweat was streaming down my body and flying off in hot little droplets. My muscles ached, and my lungs burned.
“I want that role. I want that role. I want that role.” It was the only phrase that pounded in my mind. I pushed myself harder. The more the ache for the role pressed on me, the harder I pushed. “I want that role. I want that role. I want that role.” It became a throbbing cadence. I was almost sprinting, and my heart was pulsating furiously. The burning sensation was almost unbearable. It felt as though my chest might explode with every gasp and every stride. The only thing I heard was my desperate heaving. The only thing that mattered now was the next searing lungful of air. Then suddenly, my mind cleared; the insistent pounding vanished, and just as suddenly, I got my second wind. My legs moved rhythmically, and my heart pumped smoothly. Everything fell into harmony with my regular, measured stride.
I reached the top. The views of the city and the valley were breathtaking. It was a clear, sparkling morning, and the air was exhilarating. I felt cleansed.
I slowed to an easy canter. The stress was gone, and I felt in tune with the world. I started trotting down the hill back to my car. But I still wanted that role—desperately.
* * *
The phone rang many times in the next couple of days. Each time, it did things to me. Anticipation, then fear. Did I get the role? Did I lose it? If I haven’t heard from them by this time, does it mean I’ve lost it? But always, the ringing phone was from someone else. None was from Fred.
I had vowed that I wouldn’t call him just to chat, something too many actors do. It is pointless and frustrating for both the actor and agent. I won’t do it. This was one of my self-imposed vows.
I have a lot of them. I suppose you could say I was getting superstitious. Another one of them is not talking about a prospective role until it is firmly set. So when my brother, Henry, called long-distance from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he was attending Marquette University, I didn’t let on. I wanted to. I hadn’t talked with him and my sister-in-law, June, for months. And this was important to me—to be up for a role as a regular in a series. I really wanted to share this with them. But I had made a vow to myself. So I didn’t. Like primitive man cowering before an icon that controls the unexplainable forces playing upon him, making vows of abstinence and abjuration, there I sat with my telephone, and I didn’t call my agent and I didn’t tell my brother calling from half a continent away.
Faithful to my superstitions, I bided my time and maintained my vigil before this instrument, this modern-day heathen deity. There it sat, shiny, plastic, and silent. Imperiously and insolently silent, the dials looking like a gap-toothed, mocking grin. Squat, arrogant thing; a machine, a simple piece of equipment, and yet, there it sat, trying to take on the countenance of some great and inaccessible sage witholding a coveted bit of wisdom. A Buddha! A fat, smiling, silent Buddha!
And it can’t bear being ignored. Just when I finally decided to walk away from it and go for another run, it suddenly sprang to life—shrill, and demanding.
So you’re going to play that game with me, are you? Well, I’ll just let you ring for a while and see how you like being kept in suspense. I let it continue clamoring for my attention. Finally, I picked it up.
“Hi, George.” It was Fred! “What took you so long? Taking a shower again?”
“Oh, sorry, Fred.” Suddenly, I felt the chill of both anticipation and apprehension. It was finally Fred with the word. Am I in or am I out?
“How’ve you been?” I tried feigning easy friendliness. Did it sound casual enough, or under the circumstances was it a bit too disinterested?
“Well, George, I just got the call. I thought you might like to know.” I might like to know! I couldn’t stand it. The torture was becoming unbearable. Speak up man, speak up, I felt like yelling. Then he said flatly, “You’re doing the STAR TREK pilot.” I can’t remember any other word exchanged after that. I know we talked for a long while. But all I remember was Fred’s flat, businesslike statement, “You’re doing the STAR TREK pilot.” I was doing the STAR TREK pilot! I desperately needed to go for another run.
14
Where I Had Never Gone Before
THE PILOT FILM OF STAR trek was titled where no man has gone before. Just the sound alone evoked adventure, something momentous—and ominous.
The pilot was to be filmed, not at Desilu’s main lot in Hollywood, but at its secondary studio facility in Culver City. That did seem a bit ominous. I had heard the grapevine whispers about the extremely tight budget.
I had also been told that this was the second attempt at the STAR TREK concept. A previous pilot film, called “THE CAGE,” had been made the year before with Jeffrey Hunter, my adoptive brother from Hell to Eternity, as the captain. That had been rejected. So, in a sense, this effort really wasn’t where no man had gone before. This was
the do-or-die pilot film. We had to make this one fly. Although I had nothing to do with the first, nevertheless, I felt the pressure of this project’s history. We had to get it right.
But when I reported to the Desilu Culver studio, everyone gathered on the soundstage seemed upbeat and optimistic. There was the excited bustle of a new project about to be launched.
I was greeted by a scholarly-looking crew-cut man wearing an owlish pair of dark-rimmed glasses. He introduced himself as Morris Chapnik, Gene Roddenberry’s research assistant. He ushered me to my dressing room, a square wooden box on wheels furnished with a couch, a floor-to-ceiling mirror, carpeting, and just enough space for a small closet. I peered in the open door and was surprised to see another person lying on the couch. He got up with a start when he sensed us looking in.
“Meet James Doohan, who is playing Scott, the engineer. He’s your dressing roommate,” Morris told me rather matter-of-factly.
“What! What! What’s this?” The startled actor suddenly came to animated life. “What’s this about a roommate?”
“We’re sorry about this,” apologized Morris blandly. “We have a limited number of dressing rooms so we’re asking the actors to double up.” The actor glared at Morris and started to get up with protest in his eyes, but I broke in with an extended hand.
“Good to meet you, James. I’m George Takei. I’m playing Sulu, the biophysicist.” Then I added with a smile, “I guess when you’re doing a pilot, these are the adjustments we have to make. It’ll be a pleasure sharing this little box with you.” He looked down at my proffered hand and tentatively took it.
“Yeah. Isn’t this something,” he agreed, mollified a bit. “This tiny little space, and they ask you to share it. But, you’re right, I guess. I heard they have a real tight budget on this one. Real tight.” He shook our clasped hands, and with a disarming smile he added, “By the way, call me Jimmy.”
“Okay, Jimmy.” I grinned.
While we were discussing our shared dressing arrangements, Morris had quietly slipped away to attend to other duties. Jimmy became immediately affable.
“Actually, you know,” he confided conspiratorially, “I don’t mind sharing with you. Back in my New York days, I’ve shared tiny, little closets that they call dressing rooms with other actors. Literally grungy little holes!”
“We’ve all gone through those days, haven’t we,” I agreed and started to share my own New York experiences with him.
“But!” he interrupted with stern emphasis blazing in his eyes, “we can’t let them get away with this again. I mean it! Once the pilot is sold, we’ve got to have our own dressing rooms. That’s a definite!” Of course, I thought, but before I was able to get a word out, he continued. “What do you think? Do you think this pilot will sell? Huh?” There was anxiety around the edge of his voice. And this time, he waited for me to respond.
Despite our abrupt meeting, I was charmed by this amiably forthright man. He was refreshingly down-to-earth. It would be fun working with him, I thought, hoping the pilot would sell.
“Well, Jimmy,” I said, “I get a strong smell from this production.”
“What! What! What do you mean?” he asked, agitated.
“I smell quality,” I amplified. “I smell it in the script. I smell it in the cast they’ve gathered.” And I told him about having seen both Shatner and Nimoy perform onstage. “And most of all, I smell quality in the concept. It’s not just another knockoff of last season’s hit. It’s fresh and innovative. I smell quality about this entire project.”
“Good. Good. Me, too,” he agreed, smiling brightly. “This is a real classy project.”
“But that means we’re in trouble,” I stated flatly.
“What do you mean?” Jimmy’s expression shifted to puzzlement.
“Television has no respect for quality,” I explained. “Quality is the kiss of death. Every show that I’ve liked was cancelled in a flash. If this STAR TREK sells,” I predicted, “at best, it’ll run two seasons. More likely, we’ll be killed in one.”
As if to put a stop to this gloomy conversation, Morris popped his head back in and asked us to get dressed right away. They would like us for rehearsals onstage.
When Jimmy and I reported to the set, it was buzzing with activity. We weren’t late, but an informal rehearsal seemed to be already in progress. There was an eagerness, an anticipatory champing at the bit to get started.
The dominating voice over the cacophony was that of the director, James Goldstone. His booming baritone could be heard over all the shouts and calls and whistles. But what commanded all eyes and pulled them like some gravitational force to the blazingly lit center of the set was the single most compelling presence there, the unmistakable star of the production, William Shatner. Everything seemed to revolve around him. The director’s slow, circling pacing, his keen, calculating eyes, the full intensity of his concentration, all were focused on Shatner. The camera crew, the light crew, the sound team were all converged on him. The circular configuration of the set placed his chair at the very centermost point. And Shatner fully occupied the epicenter. He commanded the hub of all activity on the set.
He radiated energy and a boundless joy in his position. He shouted his opinions out to the director; he sprang up demonstrating his ideas; he laughed and joked and bounced his wit off the crew. And the loudest, fullest enjoyment of his witticisms came also from Shatner himself—a bright, lilting, surprisingly high-pitched giggle. He beamed out an infectious, expansively joyous life force.
Standing off in the darkened periphery, I spied another face, the face from the small theater production of Deathwatch. I recognized the sharp eyes, the aquiline nose, and the bony angularity of the face. It was the actor Leonard Nimoy. But in the half-light of the outer edge of the set, his complexion seemed to have an eerie yellowish cast, the sides of his eyebrows arched up like the eaves of a pagoda roof. His face looked exotic, vaguely Asian. Nimoy stood there silently, wearing a terry-cloth robe, watching attentively, his chary eyes taking in everything. Then suddenly, as if he had decided he had seen enough, he turned around and stalked off into the darkness. Swiftly and as soundlessly as a cat, he was gone.
Other actors were gathering now. Two other actors sidled up next to Jimmy and me. Both were dressed in the body-hugging velour shirt of what we had been told was the Starfleet uniform. The older man was stocky, gray-haired, resolute-looking. This was Paul Fix, who was playing the ship’s medical officer, Dr. Mark Piper. Next to him stood a good-looking young black actor. I knew that he, too, was cast in a breakthrough role for television, that of the communications officer of the ship, Mr. Alden. When he saw me, he smiled and moved toward me.
“Hi, I’m Lloyd Haynes,” he whispered, offering his hand. “Didn’t I see you in Fly Blackbird!? You were great!”
“Thanks,” I whispered back. “Yeah, I flew as a blackbird then, and now here we are about to take off on a starship into the future. Demonstrating in the twentieth century and integrating the twenty-third. Small world, isn’t it?” I laughed.
“Isn’t that . . . a small galaxy?” Lloyd corrected with a smile.
“No, that isn’t,” Jimmy interrupted. “That’s three centuries. Twentieth century to the twenty-third is three centuries. Not a galaxy.” Jimmy was already fine-tuning his character of the meticulously precise Scottish engineer.
Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman, the guest stars of the pilot episode, appeared and joined the gathering group of actors set-side.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. We are ready to begin rehearsals!” The assistant director’s powerful voice brought a gradual stop to all the shouting, the pounding, and the hustle and bustle. With silence and order restored, the assistant handed the set over to the director, James Goldstone.
“All right now. This is the bridge of the Starship Enterprise,” Goldstone’s deep, resonant voice began. “It is the nerve center, the brains of a great technological organism.�
�� Then he looked around at the assembled players. He craned his neck over the heads, searching, and then he asked his assistant, “Is Leonard ready to join us?”
“I am here.” A voice came out of the dark. And into the light emerged not an actor, but a surreal presence. He was dressed in the same velour Starfleet shirt as all the rest of us. He was cast as an alien but looked anthropomorphic, of human form with a head, two arms, and legs like the rest of us. Yet he was startlingly exotic. His skin was the color of deep, rich cream. His eyebrows swept up at their ends. But the most arresting thing about his appearance was his astonishing ears. They looked normal in all aspects but one. They curved to a point that rose sharply upward like the ears of an alert cat. As bizarre as they may have looked, however, they were actually quite pleasing. There was grace and a sculptural balance to them. They looked oddly genuine.
The person who stepped into full view exuded a detached, even slightly superior attitude. An air of guarded reserve. There was a curious credibility about him. Instead of seeming fantastical, he moved onto the bridge like a proud but somewhat wary foreigner placed among a group of strangers. I understood that feeling. I had experienced it myself in the past. As strange as he appeared, there was an eerie reality about him.
What a sensational entrance, I thought. To step onto the set for the first time and be completely and compellingly in character. And what a fantastic character!
On that first day, instead of meeting an actor, I first met Mr. Spock. Over the years, I was to discover how fantastically original a creation Mr. Spock would become. So intriguing, so dense, and so elevating was this character that I often had difficulty distinguishing where the shared territory with the actor began and ended—where the borders might be that finally separated Mr. Spock from the profoundly complex man who came to personify him. It was tantalizing. I wanted to get to know the actor I had met that first day as a strange but hauntingly real character. I wanted to get to know Leonard Nimoy. There was another reason now to pray that this pilot would sell.