- Stephen Collins, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1978. Paramount was dumb. It saw Star Wars take off and craved its own sf franchise, not understanding that it already had one. Except the suits always hated the series and snuffed it in 1969. From then on, they didn’t know which way to fly – series or movie. A Phase II series almost began, then churned into a film. An instant flop, aka The Slow-Motion Picture, with a cast that was a decade older and fatter, Robert Wise totally wrong as director and a new character, Willard Decker, created to take over the USS Enterprise, in case William Shatner/Kirk chased more money for any encore! In the Will mix were: Hindle, Jordan Clarke, Frederic Forrest, Lance Henriksen, Richard Kelton, Stephen Macht, Andrew Robinson, Tim Thomerson and Collins (whose career was over in 2014 after admitting sexual conduct with three under-age girls). “We didn’t feel that we were getting to play the characters that we enjoyed playing in the way that we knew how to play them,” exclaimed Leonard Nimoy/Spock, soon saving the franchise by directing two chapters.
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Tim Matheson, Tucker’s Witch, TV, 1982-1983. In the (unseen) pilot, Hindle and Kim Cattrall were Rick and Amanda Tucker, running their own private eye agency. In the series, they became Matheson and Catherine Hicks. Didn’t help. Series was dead in the water and chopped by CBS after 13 episodes. Bad news for writers Paul Huson – and William Bast, better known for his books and tele-films about his 1950s lover. James Dean.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2