David McCallum, Spock's inspiration?

[danlo]

Interesting that Roddenberry credits David McCallum's (Ilya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and now "Ducky" on NCIS) makeup from an original Outer Limits episode called The Sixth Finger as one of his prime inspirations for the creation of Mr. Spock!


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[aTOMiC]

Didn't know that. Now that I see the pic I kind of remember the episode.
Why did I pass on those OL seasons on dvd?

Well it's clear where the ears came from anyway.
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[dlbpharmd]

I can also see where the idea came from for the Talosians in the pilot episode of ST.
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[danlo]

From wiki:

Influence on Star Trek

A few of the monsters reappeared in Gene Roddenberry's 1960s Star Trek show. A feathered creature was modified to appear as a zoo animal in the background of the first pilot of Star Trek; a prop head from "Fun and Games" was used to make a Talosian appear as a vicious creature. The moving carpet beast in "The Probe" later was used as the "Horta", and operated by the same actor (Janos Prohaska). The process used to make pointed ears for David McCallum in "The Sixth Finger" was reused in Star Trek as well. Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) appeared in two episodes, "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" and "I, Robot", William Shatner (James T. Kirk) appeared in the starring role in the episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" as an astronaut working on a project ironically called Project Vulcan, James Doohan (Montgomery Scott) appeared in a supporting role as a policeman in "Expanding Human", Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand) appeared in the episode "Controlled Experiment" and other actors established in the genre by the first series appeared in Trek episodes.

In fact Gene Roddenberry paid a lot of attention to what The Outer Limits team was doing at the time, and he was often present in their studios. Later he hired several Outer Limits alumni, among them Robert Justman and Wah Chang for the production of Star Trek
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"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all previous centuries of it's existence."~Nikola Tesla

[Avatar]

Love the Outer Limits, although I've never seen any of the old originals.

--A
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