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Revisiting the quirkiest Star Trek book, with Doug Drexler
There are about 140 original-series reference and non-fiction books worth owning. One stands out for sheer oddness: the Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual.
About half of this delightful 1970s fandom jetsam is like a real-world textbook, with lists of diseases and drugs, instructions on lifting injured persons, and information on the Heimlich Maneuver, CPR, and resuscitation. The other half is fanciful speculation on the species — humanoids, non-humanoids, parasites, and plants — that filled Star Trek, plus information on otherworldly elements, psionic studies, and the requirement that “each Starship shall have in its health crew complement at least one person so designated as a Doctor of Chiropractic.” A chart will inform you, quite correctly, that palladium is represented by the symbol Pd, has the atomic number 46, and was first identified in England in 1803, and then the next entry is about pergium, Pe and atomic number 111, which was discovered on Mercury in 2023.
The book is a decidedly odd mix of fact and fancy and one of its creators, Star Trek luminary Doug Drexler, told me that most of the people who worked on it didn’t really want to.
“It’s a strange anomaly of a book that we would not have done except that Ron had this girlfriend,” he said, referring to Ron Barlow, with whom Drexler worked at the storied Federation Trading Post, a Star Trek store in New York City in the 1970s. “Ron had a girlfriend, Eileen Palestine, who was a registered nurse and she had the idea of doing the Medical Reference Manual. I thought we could have spent the time doing something more interesting.”
Barlow and Palestine convinced Drexler, store employees Geoffrey Mandel, Mitch Green, and Anthony Frederickson, and others to work on the book. The team was tasked, for example, with describing the Tribble digestive system and then Frederickson had to draw it. “We had to say to ourselves ‘How are we going to figure this out?’ but we did it for Ron’s girlfriend. We would rather have been doing ships.”
Palestine handled the medical information and she and Barlow wrote the text, while the rest worked up the illustrations. Drexler cannot recall which of them drew each one. The first version of the book, a fan edition with a shiny white cover, was sold in the store.
Then one day “a guy came into the Federation Trading Post and he had a contract with Ballantine Books to do a Star Trek book, and he knew nothing about Star Trek. He came in to pick our brains.”
The publisher sent the man’s manuscript to the store for a review — and it was terrible. “We told Ballantine that, and they cancelled the book with this guy,” Drexler said. “We had the fan edition of the Medical Reference and they saw that and said ‘Well, we could make a book out of this, if you want.’ And that’s how it happened.”
The book must have been at least fairly successful, as its first printing in October 1977 was followed one month later by a second.
The happenstance nature of its publication is typical of 1970s Star Trek merchandise, much of which was created by semi-professional fans who started out making unlicensed items for themselves or for sale at conventions.
Then DS9 made a bunch of it canon
Drexler worked as a scenic artist on Deep Space Nine, and when the producers needed some graphics for the wall of Keiko O’Brien’s classroom in season one, they grabbed illustrations those store employees had created more than a decade earlier.
Seven drawings were colourized and used on a display labelled Comparative Xenobiology, seen here in the episodes A Man Alone and The Nagus.
Which makes the location of Horta ovaries canon.
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Quick-hit TOS novel reviews
I have been revisiting the Star Trek novels I loved as a young fan — and I did love them. All of them. One of my favourite fandom memories is flipping through the sci-fi novels at my local library and finding a Trek I had not read. It was as exciting as if I had discovered an unknown episode.
But if young me loved every novel that had Star Trek on the cover, I cannot say the same for the adult me. It turns out that a lot of Trek novels are really crummy. They were pumped out to satisfy hungry fans, and the quality was all over the place.
I have been buying ebook versions of all the classic novels I already own in paper, whenever they come up in the publisher’s monthly $0.99 sales.
I won’t comment too much on some of the titles I didn’t like, such as Memory Prime and Vulcan’s Glory (which I didn’t finish), The Entropy Effect (which was okay) and The Joy Machine (truly awful; I wrote about it here).
But I’ve read a few that were quite good.
Prime Directive
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
This novel is a little dystopian for my Trek tastes but it posits an intriguing and very well-considered question, and is worth reading. It makes you reconsider Federation ideals, and that is rare in a Star Trek novel.
Yesterday’s Son
A.C. Crispin
This novel presents a compelling what-if: what would Spock do if he discovered he had impregnated Zarabeth during the events of All Our Yesterdays?
But Crispin had to add a lot of fluff to stretch the premise to novel length. This would have worked better as a TOS or TNG episode.
The Vulcan Academy Murders
Jean Lorrah
Lorrah offers an intriguing and mostly plausible look at Vulcan society and does a lot to address Sarek’s terrible parenting in Journey to Babel.
The murders themselves are far too complicated and improbable but the Vulcan stuff is solid.
The Motion Picture
Gene Roddenberry
I recently reread Roddenberry’s movie novelization, which is of course delightful. Love instructors, new humans, and a preface by Admiral Kirk himself: it is peak late-70s Roddenberry.
Spock Must Die!
James Blish
This was the first non-juvenile Trek novel, and I really wanted to like it. Did I? No. Should you read it anyway? Probably. It is interesting for its place in fandom and it offers some interesting ideas. The same cannot be said for the actual first Trek novel, the terrible Mission to Horatius. Don’t read that.
Agents of Influence
I don’t love the organization that forms the premise of this novel but the writing and the pacing are very good, and this is an intriguing story. I plan to read more of Ward’s books.
Postscript: I have to call shenanigans on the cover of The Vulcan Academy Murders. Spock is pictured confronting a le-matya (first seen in the animated episode Yesteryear) but in the novel Spock never even travels out into the desert and never encounters the predator.
A.C. Crispin, Agents of Influence, D.C. Fontana, Dayton Ward, Eugenics War, Gene Roddenberry, Greg Cox, James Blish, James Gunn, Jean Lorrah, Memory Prime, Mission to Horatius, Novels, Reeves-Stevens, Spock Must Die, Star Trek, The Entropy Effect, The Joy Machine, The Motion Picture, The Vulcan Academy Murders, Vonda N. McIntyre, Vulcan's Glory, Yesterday's Son -
How I got three Matt Jefferies signatures
Running a Star Trek collectibles site means you get contacted by people looking to sell stuff. Sometimes that ends in disappointment but sometimes you land a big envelope of Matt Jefferies autographs from Australia.
This is a story of the latter.
I received an email in early October: “I have hand written letters, card, magazine…. All signed by Walter Matt Jeffries… Found in a box of books I bought in an auction… Maybe you’re interested… cheers Tracy”
I was, and I asked for photos. Unfortunately, Tracy did not have set sketches or production notes, but rather personal correspondence from later in Jefferies’ life. The best item is a signature on an article about Jefferies in the December 1996 issue of Aviation Illustrated magazine. But yes, I was interested. Jefferies, the art director for TOS’ entire run, is a Star Trek hero and I had only the official signed card and the book his brother wrote, Beyond the Clouds.
Tracy suggested $100 plus shipping, and I countered at $100 including shipping. She agreed, and that’s when I learned she’s in Australia, so even better. $100 Australian was about $88 Canadian.
While I waited for the package, I asked Tracy for more details on the acquisition.
I bought a box of books at my local auction (deceased estate) and found some personal stuff belonging to Effie Young amongst the books. On the front of the envelope says … Do not throw out… friend since I was 15… Effie was an American girl (who ultimately married an Aussie) and she knew Matt Jeffries when she was a teenager (possible romance?) Effie lived in California growing up… Effie married and moved to Australia but she must have had a strong friendship over the years with Matt and his family, as he posted the signed magazine to her from California.
The package arrived and I am certainly pleased with my purchases. I got the magazine, a business card, a large envelope, a note signed “Love Walter” and a Christmas card he signed “Love Mary Ann ’n Walter.” For the scans of the last two items, I cropped out the personal details he shared with Effie. Jefferies was unwell and undergoing treatment, and the details are a little too personal to share.
Thank you, Tracy. I got a small glimpse into this long-term friendship and a few items connected to Matt Jefferies, and you made a little money. Good deal.
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Display your collectibles, the Mego edition
A good friend of mine is a longtime Star Trek fan and an active collector, but he has none of his collectibles on display — and he has a room available for this purpose. This bugs me to no end, because the best way to enjoy your collection is to put it out where you can see it.
A case in point: I recently created this Mego display area in my Star Trek room.
This was prompted by two recent acquisitions: a pair of Star Trek Communicators walkie-talkies and the matched Command Communications Console. All three toys work perfectly and are in surprisingly good shape. The Console seems like it has barely been used; the stickers are peeling a little with age but otherwise it looks great. I also got the original box, although it is a little beat up. The toy came from England, and the seller said: “I had an elderly relative who owned a small independent gift/toy shop and whilst clearing out the warehouse we discovered a wide range of action figures, including quite a few rare and collectible items.” We haggled over the price a little and settled on 180 pounds, about $280 Canadian, plus shipping. I got it in September 2022. I picked up the pair of Communicators for US$85, about $115 Canadian, two months earlier.
The Console has moving red and green lights on the front, reminiscent of some of the computer displays on the show. Here is a video of those lights and another with the Console’s alert sounds.
I purchased the Mego U.S.S Enterprise Action Playset in 2018 for the amazing price of US$100 and it had been living on a bookcase shelf since then, but I always felt it deserved a better space. The figures were acquired over time. I bought Uhura, Scotty and Spock (all loose) for $200 from Steven Panet at Fastball Collectibles in Toronto (who has a number of Star Trek items for sale, including a nice playset with box), the Kirk was a steal for $25 at Hamilton Comic Con, and the Klingon and McCoy figures were both purchased loose years ago for about $20 each.
The three mint-on-card figures were about $100 each, acquired at different times, and the signature on the Kirk figure was free.
Buying the Console and the Communicators convinced me I needed one home for all my Mego stuff, so I bought a nice shelf unit at Ikea for $150.
Add that up and the items in my new Mego display area set me back about $1,200, plus some shipping costs. Say $1,400 total.
There is even room for expansion: if I ever manage to afford the Mission to Gamma VI Playset and the Telescreen Console Playset, I can simply remove the doors on the lower part of the cabinet.
$1,400 is a lot of money, even spread over a few years, but the new display makes me happy every time I walk into my Star Trek room. Which is why people should display their collectibles. They don’t make you as happy sitting in boxes.
And now for some commercials
The commercial Mego made for the Command Communications Console also shows off the Communicators, although oddly the Console is different from mine: the colour seems much darker and the antenna is attached at the right side, rather than the left as on my toy. Perhaps that’s because mine is from England. The photo on this UK collector’s site looks just like my toy.
And here’s the commercial for the Communicators.
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How much would you pay for the 1967 Leaf card set?
I was recently offered a first shot at a complete set of authentic Star Trek Leaf cards. These are a holy grail of TOS collectibles. The story often told is that the distribution was shut down because the manufacturer had not bothered to secure a licence, and I can’t say if that tale is correct but authentic cards are certainly rare and a complete set is worth a lot.
So I had to decide: how much was I willing to pay? I settled on a limit of US$500, but there is a story in how I got there. Read on for a tale of high hopes and poor manners, and for advice on how to spot the real cards in an ocean of worthless forgeries.
The 1967 cards were made by Leaf Brands. The 72 cards were a little smaller than standard and featured black-and-white images backed by text. To call them oddball is faint praise; the text is often unrelated to both the image on the front and any actual episode of Star Trek, but they are wildly entertaining.
I started collecting TOS more than 40 years ago, which means I have been chasing a Leaf set for all those decades. At the end of July, 2022, I was contacted through this site by a guy I will call Trey. (I’ll call him that because that’s his real name.)
Running a Star Trek collectibles site means I get email fairly regularly from people looking for information and advice on items bought in a curio shop, acquired from a deceased relative or found in an attic. Most of these people are not actually Star Trek fans.
I like to be helpful, so I spend time on research and reply with estimated values, selling advice and even contacts. And then — more often than not — the person disappears, without even saying thank you. Which is what Trey did.
How to tell if a Leaf card is real
Those who really know their Trek collectibles can spot authentic 1967 cards, but it’s not knowledge most people have.
The real 1967s. If you’re looking at cards that meet these three criteria, you probably have the real things.
- The size, measured end-to-end of the cardboard, is 61 x 88 mm.
- The authentic items were made from layers of cardboard in slightly different colours, so there should be visible layers in the construction of each card.
- The images should be sharp. Check particularly card 3, but if any are fuzzy or soft that is a bad sign.
The excellent 1981 reprints. This reprint set is helpfully and clearly labelled “1981 reprint.” These words replace the “Leaf Brands” on the back and the reprints were not printed using shaded layers of cardboard, but otherwise they are identical to the originals, as they are the same size and the images are clear.
The worthless 1989 Dan Kremer Imports set. A bunch of cards were released to the market in the late 1980s, sold with a fake Certificate of Authenticity which told the following story. (The text here is drawn from the excellent Wixiban Star Trek site.)
1967 Leaf (European) Star Trek Set
This Star Trek Leaf card set was discovered in Europe in 1989 at a former card producer’s warehouse that has been in business since well before the 60’s. From the information provided to us, we understand that these were manufactured in cooperation with Leaf for European distribution only. Shortly thereafter, Desilu withdrew the contract with Leaf, due to contractual difficulty. Upon notification of the aforementioned problem, the European card manufacturer decided not to issue them and stored them in the warehouse where they have been until their re-discovery in 1989 by Dan Kremer, a European collectibles importer.
And on the reverse:
Upon examination, The European set exhibits the following differences to their American counterpart. The European sets were never gloss coated (very few European cards were ever gloss coated). The cutting was poorer than the American edition (the cutting machines in Europe were early outdated cutters from the U.S.) The camera work is slightly poorer (again, inferior cameras).
We hope you enjoy the very special previously unavailable set.
Dan Kremer Imports
That tale is untrue; these were simply pirated copies, produced later and poorly done. They are slightly smaller than the originals, the images are often fuzzy, and the card stock is single layer, so there is no variation when a stack of cards are viewed on end.
Trey and his cards
Back to Trey. In July 2022, I received a few polite but insistent emails from him. He wanted to talk as soon as possible, so we set a time. Over email and a long phone call down to Texas, I learned that he and his partners buy abandoned storage units, and one of those gambles paid off: they found a bunch of valuable construction material and a small pile of Star Trek cards. Internet research led him to Leaf and then to a mention on my About my Collection page.
Trey had also seen an article that referenced an auction price of $1,000 for a complete 1967 set, so he had visions of dollar signs dancing in his head. He wanted advice on selling and asked me if I wanted to buy them.
I asked if the cards said “Reprint” on them and was told no. I then said he most likely had the pirated 1989 set, as there are a lot of them around. His business partner actually had the cards in front of her and, once she was added to the call, I told them what to look for and suggested she grab a ruler to measure a card. Then she suddenly dropped off the call.
And I never heard back from Trey. Not even to say thank you. Follow-up emails were ignored.
So, what would it be worth to me?
Had the cards been authentic 1967s and in good shape, how much would I have offered? My 1960s and 1970s collection does not have many holes, and this is certainly a big one. But I have the 1981 reprints, and that feels very much like owning the real things.
As I said above, I decided on a limit of US$500. I was a little reluctant to spend that much but how could I not try? How often does an authentic 1967 set just drop out of the air?
So now I feel let down, by Trey and because I would like to own the 1967s. To make myself feel better, I spent some time with my reprint set and then decided to share, so here’s my piece on them, full of reprinted 1967 goodness.
Postscript
Being repeatedly asked for advice and then not even thanked has a draining effect on one’s willingness to help the next person. But a guy named Maxwell on the US west coast recently renewed my faith. He was looking for information on a dinner plate produced by Pfaltzgraff for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The text on the back is not the standard and I hoped he had a prototype or an artist’s proof, but some research revealed his version is rare but not a one-off. I gave him some advice on selling it.
And Maxwell thanked me for my time, even adding “Too bad I’m on the other side of the continent (NW WA state in the U.S.) or I’d offer you a Saurian Brandy at some point.” He owns a Dickel bottle, similar to the ones used on the series, so he’s an actual Trek fan.
That probably explains why he was kind enough to thank me for my time.
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Share in the glory that is the (reprinted) Leaf cards
I recently thought I had the inside track on an authentic set of the 1967 Leaf cards. It was a brief and shining moment and I wrote about it here. It all went nowhere, as the guy who contacted me actually had a set of the worthless Dan Kremer pirated cards.
But that experience made me want to share the excellent (if reportedly unauthorized) reprint set from 1981. Unlike the 1989 Kremer cards, these were stamped “1981 Reprint” — so no one was trying to fool buyers.
The cards feature many publicity and behind-the-scenes images, and some of the text is actually pretty close to actual Star Trek episodes. But mostly, these cards are wonderfully wacky. You would not feel cheated if you bought the entire set just for this plotline:
Mr. Spock checks his library computer. It reveals signals from an intergalactic noise dispensary, developed by Snards before these warlike creatures were destroyed in a war to conquer the galaxy in an insurance of peace.
Click on any image to see a bigger version.
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Revisiting the weird planet fan stories
This week on The Inglorious Treksperts podcast, the guys discussed the fan story Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited. That piece, published in the short story compilation Star Trek: The New Voyages in 1976, is a take on an earlier work of fan fiction called Visit to a Weird Planet.
The hosts said they had not read the original work, and I could not let that stand. So here are both of those stories.
Visit to a Weird Planet
Spockanalia was one of the best of the early fanzines. (I own the complete run and I need to write about them one day.) Issue number three was dated September 1, 1968, and included Visit to a Weird Planet, penned by Jean Lorrah (who would go on to write the TOS novels The Vulcan Academy Murders and The IDIC Epidemic and TNG novels Survivors and Metamorphosis) and Willard F. Hunt (a fanfic writer).
The story is subtitled “the inside story behind the antagonism of a certain network toward a certain segment of the population” — so you immediately get an idea of where this is going.
Kirk, Spock and McCoy are transporting up to the Enterprise but they materialize in the transporter set at Desilu, not their starship in space. The trio have a quick discussion and Spock suggests a “multi-parallel space-time inversion” has landed them in “a television studio filming a futuristic space adventure series.” The scene is reminiscent of the sickbay meeting early in Mirror, Mirror.
Kirk invokes the Prime Directive, he and McCoy proceed to learn their lines for the scene being filmed, and the three do their best to blend into the 1960s. I won’t give away more of the plot. You can read it yourself.
The story is very well written and does a good job of portraying a sound stage of the era. The script Kirk is handed is even described as a “sheaf of varicolored pages,” which is a deep-cut reference to the practice of printing revised pages on different coloured paper. The scripts the actors used were, indeed, “varicolored.”
Here is the story. Click through the page images or read or download a PDF of just the text.
Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited
Fan writer and editor Ruth Berman was the editor for the first run of the Inside Star Trek newsletters and, after reading Visit in Spockanalia, she started to wonder about the other end of the premise: what the actors did on the Enterprise. So she wrote that story and it was published in Spockanalia issue 5. However, like the Inglorious Treksperts, I first read the piece in Star Trek: The New Voyages. It too is well written and entertaining.
Click here to listen to the guys talk about it on the podcast, flip through the page images, or read the text or download the PDF.
Both these stories are, of course, Galaxy Quest before there was Galaxy Quest, and they kicked off a whole series of related tales. We also got Visiting a Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited (TNG), Visit to the Weirdest Planet—Earth (Voyager), Visit to a Weird Island (Gilligan’s Island), Visit to a Weird ‘Verse, Re-revisited (Firefly), and others. I’ve read most of those. The original two are the best, although the Gilligan one is also clever.
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William Shatner Live! — with tripod
Writer Mike Poteet interviewed me recently for a profile of Collecting Trek on the site Redshirts Always Die and wrote a really good article. Give that piece a read.
We did a quick video tour of my Star Trek room and I ended up relating the story of William Shatner’s photo shoot for the album Captain of the Starship. William Shatner Live! The autographed and framed album on my wall is the Canadian version of the US LP. The Encyclopedia Shatnerica has this to say about that album:
This 1977 live album captures Shatner’s performance of his one-man show in the mid-1970s. Recorded at Hofstra University (in Hempstead, New York), the two-disc set was produced by Shatner and released through his company, Lemli music (named after his daughters Leslie, Melanie and Lisabeth). A remarkable performance before a mostly stoned college audience.
The US product has a fairly cool photo of Shatner on stage surrounded by 10 microphones, but Canadian compilation powerhouse K-Tel International could not use that image for some reason, so it needed a new cover photo. Therein lies a tale I have heard Shatner tell on at least one occasion.
Shatner arrived for the photo shoot and glanced around the fairly empty room. He asked what the plan was and received only blank looks from the photo crew. They had the same question.
An action pose was needed for the picture, so Shatner grabbed a tripod, flipped it around, and held it like a ray gun. Luckily he had chosen a sort-of yellow sweater when he headed out that morning. The photo works well enough on the album cover but it’s even better if you know that back story.
Shatner signed the LP for me in 2014 at Fan Expo in Toronto but, sadly, he used a black marker, so the autograph does not stand out well against the dark photo.
I cannot play these two discs, as I do not own a record player. Until recently, all four sides of the recording were on YouTube but the uploader has removed those videos.
The first disc is Shatner doing a number of readings from classic plays and novels. The best of those is “Ways to the Moon” from the Edmond Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac. I say that because the performance is quite good and because Cyrano is my favourite play.
The second disc is mostly our captain answering questions from the audience. Notably, he relates the story of why Leonard Nimoy was reluctant to sign on for the first Star Trek movie. I tell the story of the Heineken poster incident here.
Speaking of Leonard Nimoy
Joining the Shatner album on my wall is Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space, signed for me at Fan Expo in 2009. I don’t have an interesting story about that one, but at least its tracks are on YouTube.
Postscript
The text on the back of Shatner’s album was written by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. They were fans and semi-professional writers and I was often baffled by their Star Trek novels as a kid. I have not read those books in years but the prose they penned for the album reminds me why their writing style bothered me.
“What is becoming increasingly clear is that the legendary Kirk is finding a place in the history of heroes which is unique, one-of-a-kind, unprecedented.” Those three terms are synonyms. Someone apparently paid good money for a thesaurus and wasn’t about to not use it.
Here is another bit: “The dramatic performance speaks of the flying, and is the flying.” What? -
Avoid the Blurg: playing 1975’s Star Trek Game from Palitoy
Star Trek premiered on the BBC in 1969 and was quite popular but there was scant homegrown merchandise and most of the Trek products on British shelves were US imports.
That changed a little when Palitoy landed a Star Trek licence in 1975. The company, originally called Cascelloid, produced its first toy in 1920. It was renamed Palitoy in 1935 and its business was mostly built on UK versions of American toys. Its popular Action Man figures, for example, were copies of Hasbro’s GI Joe line.
One of the company’s few original products was its Star Trek Game. (Quick aside: coming up with game names was not anyone’s strong suit, as four different companies each produced a board game between 1967 and 1979 and all were called Star Trek Game.)
The instructions for Palitoy’s game tell players that “the Enterprise is menaced by a deadly Klingon War Ship. Only Zithium and Beton crystals from the Planet of Fire and the Ice Planet can destroy it.”
The mission is to “Bring back both crystals and plant them in the War Ship.” The player then uses the Baroom card, which blows up the Klingon ship.
The Blurg and some Klingons But getting those crystals is not easy, because four Klingons chase you around the board, and each planet has its own protector: the Spider on the Planet of Fire and the Blurg on the Ice Planet. An encounter with these adversaries delays, but does not kill, players. Luckily, Kirk and Spock are hanging around and are available to stun opponents.
And that’s a strange element of the game design: you can’t play as Kirk, Spock, or any crewmember. Instead, you get to be one of six generic game pieces. This seems like a big miss. Kids (and adults) would rather play as a character.
Big collectible value
I am not a gamer so, although I have owned this for years, I only played it recently to write this article. But if I don’t love it as a game, I do love it as a collectible. The artwork – which was based on both the Mego and Gold Key takes on Star Trek – is fantastic. It’s colourful and silly and fun. And it is from the 1970s, a decade of fandom that continues to fascinate me.
My game includes all the original pieces, except for a few of the small plastic tubes that represent the crystals. I have five of the orange and three of the blue pieces, instead of six of each. And some of them are fused to the plastic tray in the carton. This is apparently common with this game, as the chemicals in the pieces can react with the plastic carton, making it appear partially melted. This can also happen with the Blurg and Spider figures, although my bad guys are in good shape. The box on my game is also in good condition, considering it’s almost five decades old.
Palitoy also included an ad for its Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and Space: 1999 figures, all UK versions of the Mego products. The company also manufactured a stand-alone Transporter Room toy but did not sell versions of the full Enterprise Action Playset.
I also own the 1976 Hasbro Star Trek Game, which I will cover.
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Listen to Leonard Nimoy defend I Am Not Spock in this long-lost radio interview from 1976
Neither Charlie McKee nor Elizabeth Pearse were early risers. But on the frigid morning of February 5, 1976, the two friends climbed into McKee’s Jeep Commando for the 30-minute drive west from Toronto to Hamilton, Ontario. They were heading out to pick up Pearse’s friend Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy was starring in the touring production of Sherlock Holmes, a popular play by actor-playwright William Hooker Gillette. Nimoy was in rehearsal at the Hamilton Place theatre prior to the play’s debut and he had booked an interview at Toronto radio station CHUM-FM.
This was five months before the doors opened on Toronto Star Trek ’76, Canada’s first Star Trek convention, created by Pearse. McKee was a co-owner of storied Toronto sci-fi bookstore Bakka and a major source for my recent definitive history of that convention. During one of our talks, McKee offered to send me his recording of that radio interview.
To the best of my knowledge, this interview had been lost to fandom – until now. Click below to listen to the entire 20-minute conversation.
A transcript of the interview was published in the 1976 Spring/Summer issue of Bakka Magazine, along with Pearse’s account of the car drive. Here are those pages.
He was not Spock
Nimoy’s somewhat controversial first book about his relationship with Spock was published in 1975 and, as the actor said in the radio interview, he thought the point he was making was straightforward:
The title is really a simple statement of fact, I am not Spock. In the sense that I am the actor who played the role, of course I am Spock, but in the sense of true identity, I am not. I am someone else.
But many fans felt Nimoy was disrespecting the character they loved, and this interview was one of the many times he was pressed to explain his thinking. He added:
…people are concerned about what my intention was with the book. “Was it my intention to disassociate myself from Spock?” whatever, which is really not the intention. The intention is to study the differences and to examine, if possible, the feelings that an actor goes through playing a character, and then being identified with the character.
But he also said playing Spock never limited his career, as Basil Rathbone experienced with Holmes.
Rathbone went through one year of [a] very difficult time when he had finished making the Sherlock Holmes films. He spent a year out of work… I have never had that problem. I went immediately from Star Trek, without a break, into Mission: Impossible… I did two years of that…and asked them to let me out because I wanted to do other things. And they did, and I’ve been extremely busy ever since. So I’ve never had the career problems that that kind of identity has created for other people.
Nimoy on stage
Nimoy performing at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. Photos: New York Public Library. The radio interview was recorded on a Thursday and, on the following Saturday, Charlie McKee, Elizabeth Pearse, her daughters Lauren and Debra, and a few others attended a matinee performance of the play, then still in rehearsals. Pearse wrote in Bakka Magazine that the group “all enjoyed the performance immensely and afterwards went backstage to see Leonard. He was pleased to see them and chatted with each one, while autographing copies of his book.”
Nimoy autographed McKee’s copy of I Am Not Spock and later sent him a signed playbill from the Fisher Theatre in Detroit.
Debra Pearse Hartery related a slightly different review to me in 2020.
I thought he was average. He was not my favourite Sherlock Holmes but certainly not the worst. I found it to be fine and I enjoyed the show, but I was not taken by his performance. He was a really nice guy, but not the best actor and not the worst actor.
Nimoy’s first turn as Holmes
That day in Hamilton was Nimoy’s second appearance as Holmes. As he mentioned in the interview, he first played Doyle’s detective in the short film The Interior Motive, produced for the Kentucky State Educational System, filmed in 1975. In it, Holmes and Watson use inference to understand the internal construction of the Earth. The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia has more information on the production.
And fortunately for us, the film is on YouTube.
Collecting Trek
A TOS collection 40 years in the making
Collecting Trek 