THE CAST
By late January, Fontana's first draft was in, and Roddenberry assigned Justman and Berman the not-so-simple task of finding the new cast.
DENISE CROSBY, Lieut. Tasha Yar I thought, ''Oh, no, come on, you've got to be kidding me. Who's going to watch this? Why do they just keep regurgitating old ideas?'' I just thought it sounded so rinky-dink. But I thought, ''Well, who am I to turn down work?'' I originally read for Troi. What was a Betazoid? It just sounded so gobbledygook and weird.
FONTANA Originally, Tasha Yar was going to be Latina; they thought of Jenette Goldstein, who played Vasquez in Aliens. I said, ''Well, you have to know that Jenette Goldstein is not Latina. She is petite, blue-eyed, freckle-faced.''
CROSBY The original description of Troi was this cool, Icelandic blonde. Almost Spock-like. Marina [Sirtis] was reading for Tasha. Somewhere, about the second or third audition, Gene Roddenberry had this idea: Let's just switch them and see what happens.
LEVAR BURTON, Lieut. Geordi La Forge Bob [Justman] and I had done a TV movie in the early '80s. I was such a fan of Star Trek, we sat around on the set, and I just pumped him for stories about Shatner and Nimoy. So I got a call from Bob saying they were mounting a new Star Trek series and would I be interested. My only question was, Is Gene involved?
Two of the show's most well-known characters, Lieut. Comdr. Data and Comdr. William ''Number One'' Riker, were almost played by other actors.
JUSTMAN With Data, there were two possibilities: The one who got it [Brent Spiner], and the one who didn't, Eric Menyuk. I was the only guy who preferred [Menyuk]. Not that I didn't like [Spiner]; I just thought that the other one had more stuff. We brought him back to play the Traveler [in ''Where No One Has Gone Before'' and other episodes].
BERMAN Jonathan Frakes, who's one of my closest friends, was the second choice for Riker. The first choice — an actor I'm sure you know who I will not mention — went in and read [for the studio first].
JUSTMAN He froze. So they gave him another chance seven days later. Failed again. He just didn't have it. Jonathan Frakes was next up; I remember that we were up in the Paramount offices, and Frakes was waiting outside. As we left and went down the corridor, I looked at him and went like this. [He gives a thumbs up.] He grinned.
Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, and Wil Wheaton all easily landed their respective roles as Lieut. Worf, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and her son, Wesley. Not surprisingly, the hardest role to cast was the most important: Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.
FONTANA I was [pushing for] Stephen Macht, who had a booming career at the time and was a very attractive man. He was more of a Kirk-type captain, more of a physical guy. Bob Justman was pumping for Patrick Stewart, who had been on [PBS' 1977 miniseries] I, Claudius.
JUSTMAN My wife, Jackie, and I were enrolled in a UCLA Extension [class] on Humor in the Arts. One night, an actor and actress were brought in to do cold readings of Shakespeare comedies. I don't remember her name, but I saw Patrick — he hadn't gotten more than a sentence or two off when I turned to Jackie and said, ''I think we've found our new captain.''
I arranged for a meeting between him, Gene, and myself at Gene's house. Patrick spent about 45 minutes talking with us. We saw him to the door and stood watching him drive away. Gene closed the door, turned to me, and said, quote, ''I won't have him.''
BERMAN Gene thought he was a charming and delightful guy, but said, ''I'm not going to have a bald Englishman in his 40s become my new captain.''
JUSTMAN Everybody liked Patrick, except Gene Roddenberry. We were interviewing possibilities three weeks before the shoot, and we didn't have anyone.
BERMAN It was very, very difficult. There were a lot of actors who weren't interested in doing a syndicated science-fiction show. So I said, ''Let's bug Gene into reconsidering Patrick.'' And Justman, using the wisdom of someone who'd worked with Gene for many years, said, ''Once Gene makes up his mind, he's not going to change his mind — don't waste your breath.'' But me, being in my mid-30s, full of piss and vinegar, started bugging Gene about reconsidering Patrick.
JUSTMAN We were in our office, and the last possible, viable candidate left the room, closed the door behind him, and there was a long silence. Gene heaved a heavy sigh, turned and faced us, and said, ''All right, I'll go with Patrick.''
One problem remained: Can the captain of the Enterprise be bald?
JUSTMAN We said we better not take any chances.... The day he was to go up and meet the brass at Paramount, we had him affix his hairpiece. I took him to the mirror, I looked at him, he looked at me, and I said, ''Ahhh! Take it off, take it off!'' It was just awful.
BERMAN The president of network television at the time, a gentleman named John Pike, was wise enough to say, ''He's your man, but have him lose the wig.''
NEXT PAGE: ''We hated our space suits. There were no pockets in them. As much as they call it a stretch fabric, spandex in that configuration doesn't give all that much. It hid nothing.''
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