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He sang "Kathleen" by popular demand at conventions in the 1970s. He's not one of the lucky few who got a whole career out of Star Trek, but it has definitely followed him around all these decades.
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He sang "Kathleen" by popular demand at conventions in the 1970s. He's not one of the lucky few who got a whole career out of Star Trek, but it has definitely followed him around all these decades.
That depends on how you define "lucky." I'm sure Doohan, Takei, Koenig and Nichols would have loved to actually continue full time acting rather than eek out a living doing personal appearances and writing tell-all books. It's not like they were terrible actors, they should have been able to resume their careers, but they were instantly typecast. Kelley pretty much retired after that "Night of the Lepus" movie and only acted in later Trek projects. Only Shatner and Nimoy were able to reap the benefits of Trek and that took a long time. The 70's generally sucked for all of them.
Nah, cult favorite shows like Trek are career killers. You get worldwide popularity but in return, you sacrifice a lot. Like working...
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It's not like they were terrible actors
But it kind of is.
They don't appear to have worked on their craft at all after TOS, and it showed in the ST films, where they came off as rusty hams. Almost every line reading was over-played, theatrical, cringeworthy. I think the syndrome was, "I have only x-number of lines in the whole movie, so I'm going to make them count and get NOTICED with each one." Good actors don't do that. It's embarrassing. And good actors know you have to keep honing your craft on an ongoing basis; it's NOT like riding a bike.
Regarding the pre-"Film Era" typecasting that supposedly kept them out of work, I think they either bombed at auditions, or gave up quickly, seizing on the typecasting excuse to avoid rejection. It was probably a little of both. And why not, when they could make a couple thousand dollars per weekend (good money in the 1970s) doing conventions for adoring fans.
Doohan was the best actual actor among them, and he was waylaid by his disproportionate resentment of Shatner, and later by Alzheimer's. Takei actually did work a lot, due to a supply and demand issue back then with regard to his ethnicity, and to be fair, he was good enough.
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To be honest, NONE of them did as good work in the films as they did in the first two seasons of series. Except possibly Nimoy and Kelley, who had some really meaty stuff to play. Perversely, Kelley's best work appears to be in Trek 5 during his father's death. During the series, though, most of them did really good work. Honestly, Nichelle Nichols is the most criminally underused because she was actually really good. Takei wasn't bad either, with Koenig being the weakest. He had to deal with an accent he just couldn't really master.
Once the films got rolling, everyone was living the legend and not plumbing the depths of the characters. In between the series and the films, what practice did the Gang of Four really have to polish the craft? Scant guest spots and the theater. And theater acting is quite different.
If Doohan, Nichols and Takei in particular had not done Star Trek, they may have missed the world wide acclaim, but they were talented enough to have solid careers in film and television.
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In THE NAKED TIME I always thought it was so funny when Kirk returns to the bridge near the end of the episode and steps out of the Elevator. McCoy is waiting to inject him with the antidote for the disease and just rips the living shit out of his shirt's shoulder sleeve to inject him. I mean wouldn't the needle just go through his shirt?
Must have been for dramatic effect. All the other times McCoy's injection do-hickey shoots the medication right through the patients clothing.
Here I thought it just showed that McCoy was still under the effect of the disease - he'd always wanted to rip Kirk's shirt off!
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In between the series and the films, what practice did the Gang of Four really have to polish the craft? Scant guest spots and the theater. And theater acting is quite different.
I'm talking about working with a teacher or coach, or even a workshop of peers, which I'm inclined to think the Gang of Four did not do after getting their first professional jobs.
I'm not an authority, but I think serious actors continue studying the craft throughout their careers. Bad ones become bad by playing one good role and deciding they have the whole acting thing down pat.
Slightly near-topic, I just saw REAL STEEL (2011, essentially ROCKY III with robot boxers), and it has a bunch of cool moments, but I hope this will turn out to be the worst performance of Hugh Jackman's career, because he's really terrible during some important scenes. IMHO.
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I'm talking about working with a teacher or coach, or even a workshop of peers, which I'm inclined to think the Gang of Four did not do after getting their first professional jobs.
I'm not an authority, but I think serious actors continue studying the craft throughout their careers. Bad ones become bad by playing one good role and deciding they have the whole acting thing down pat.
I hear you and, as a actor who hasn't made it to the big time myself (to date), I do agree, if I'm not working, I'm taking a class. However, if you get someone like Takei, who can't seem to land decent guest star gigs, I just can't see him spending a decade at acting class. I'm not saying you're wrong (just the opposite), but I would probably expect people who did hit it professionally not want to go back to school or do workshops with their actor friends. If anything, teaching a workshop would be something more along what they would do. That also can flex the muscles. And you don't need to be part of a school, just have the space to do it. Rent a room, charge a couple hundred bucks and there you go. Richard Hatch does it. And, frankly, he's a better actor now than he was in the 70's.
However, yeah, I can see possibly getting a workout with a coach before the big, bi-yearly Trek movie spools up would be smart, but you know they all felt they knew their characters well enough and it probably didn't even occur to them.
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Doohan, Takei, Koenig and Nichols were supporting cast, and always meant to be supporting cast members. The stars sometimes move on. Supporting actors are just lucky enough to get one long running series and maybe some on again and off again television roles. Most lead television stars don't even make it in the movies. So what chance did they really have in the acting biz? The same as the thousands of other supporting actors in other television series.
I'm just saying that they all had fairly steady work doing guest shots on various TV series before Star Trek turned them into cult heroes. Well, Nichelle Nichols was actually just starting out, but Takei had a decent career going in. And Walter Koenig was all over the teen magazines and was pretty popular in the original run and he didn't see much come from it either. James Doohan had a long career doing the guest star thing pre-Trek. After that, his work evaporated. HIs 1970's credits were very sparse. He took the biggest hit, really.
Supporting cast of not, they were popular enough to be noticed, some more than others.
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