Abandon Starship!
NBC had approved the script, in which an alien named Lazarus seduces a female member of the Enterprise crew. Days before the episode began filming, however, the network learned that an African-American actress (Janet MacLachlan) had been cast to smooch it up with Lazarus, being played by John Drew Barrymore (son of John Barrymore and father of Drew Barrymore). This would have been TV’s first interracial romance, had it been allowed to go where no love affair had gone before. Producer Gene Coon was forced to gut the script with a series of last minute rewrites, prompting Barrymore to quit during the first day of production. A frantic search began to find a suitable replacement. Actor Robert Brown was hired at 10 o’clock that night with a 6:30 a.m. call time to begin work the next day with a script he had yet to read ... a script still being rewritten.
Special Effects set-up for Shatner walking
through the "corridor" between our universe
and the "alternative" universe
That’s the short version of the story. Find out about all the drama between the network and Star Trek®, then between Star Trek® and Barrymore -- and the trial that followed to determine just how to punish the famous actor for throwing the production into disarray -- in These are the Voyages — TOS, Season One, set for publication by Jacobs/Brown Press in the July of 2013.
Special Effects set-up for Shatner walking
through the "corridor" between our universe
and the "alternative" universe
That’s the short version of the story. Find out about all the drama between the network and Star Trek®, then between Star Trek® and Barrymore -- and the trial that followed to determine just how to punish the famous actor for throwing the production into disarray -- in These are the Voyages — TOS, Season One, set for publication by Jacobs/Brown Press in the July of 2013.
Watch for These are the Voyages — TOS, Seasons Two and Three, set for publication by Jacobs/Brown Press later in 2013.
