J-K

 J-K

Thank you to those of you who have been following the blog. It isn't always that interesting to read I know, but this week I do have a couple of lovely stories to share with you, including meeting a Star Trek legend.

This weeks entries are:

Michael Jayston

Doug Jones

Sam J Jones

Dominic Keating

Alice Krige

Walter Koenig

Michael Jayston

Michael Jayston is one of my favourite actors. He has a presence and a voice, that make him stand out in everything I’ve seen him do.  Growing up in the 1970’s, Michael Jayston was in most of the best drama series on TV including Quiller and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 

Also, as a Doctor Who fan, he made an indelible impression as The Valyard. It was nice to sit and chat with him about his long and varied career, including getting to ask him about Zulu Dawn and Nicholas and Alexandra. Yes, it was really nice to meet him and find him so pleasant. 

Doug Jones

Doug Jones has a face that many people would not recognise but if you’ve seen Hellboy or Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water and Star Trek:Discovery, then you’ve seen him at work. He is most often found behind a prosthetic of some kind, or some monstrous make up, and yet to meet him in person is to meet an apparently sweet and gentle man who engulfs you in his huge arms and hugs you like an old friend. 

We didn’t get a chance to chat, a very long queue of people were waiting to see him, but  I did, as always, thank him for his work when I had this picture taken.

Sam J Jones

A regular at conventions, this is probably where he makes most of his income and it shows a bit in the way you get pushed through the lines and are dragged away again afterwards. I don’t know if that’s down to him or his ‘handlers’. Anyway, I met Flash Gordon, and he was ALIVE!

Dominic Keating

My friend Andrew Keates, once arranged for his friend, Dominic Keating, to record a voice message for a piece of theatre I was putting together my friends Mr Dobb and Mr Burrows. It was a very generous thing of him to do and it was really nice to be able to meet Mr Keating in person and thank him. I may be wrong, I don’t think Dominic Keating relishes being at conventions. Not that he wasn’t very pleasant, but he just had the look of a man who’d rather be anywhere else. 

Alice Krige

For a certain generation, Alice Krige IS the Borg Queen. That would have been enough reason to have met her at a Birmingham Star Trek convention in 2018. But I had other plans…and luckily they came to fruition, as this was another day where the short queue came into its own.

I was able to sit and chat with Alice Krige for around 20 minutes and although we did talk about Star Trek, I was more interested about a certain film role, in fact the twin roles of Eva Galli & Alma Mobley in the 1981 movie, Ghost Story.  I had read the book by Peter Straub in the late 1970’s and I was excited when they announced a film version, especially as it was to star Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Junior and John Houseman. So here was I, able to sit and interrogate Ms Krige about working with these Hollywood legends and she was very willing to share her memories. I guess she must have thought she had no choice and that resistance was futile…sorry.

Walter Koenig 

My first ever convention was on 7th October 2016 at Birmingham and I had booked primarily because cast members of the original Star Trek series were attending. Mr Shatner, Mr Takei and Mr Koenig. 

I splurged quite a bit that weekend and booked several photo shoots and I treasure those photographs of course but there was one moment I shall never forget, that involved meeting Walter Koenig. 

I guess I don’t have to tell you that Koenig played the character of Mr Chekov, and along with Sulu, Uhura and Scotty, made up the rest of the main command team behind Kirk, Spock and McCoy. They never had much dialogue or character exposition but they added so much to the overall flavour and success of the show. It was nice, in later years, and during the series of OS films, to see characters like Chekov given a little more to do and of course he graduated from Ensign to Commander by the time of his last appearance (played by Koenig) in Star Trek: Generations (1994). I perhaps should mention that in 2015, Koenig reprised the role as Admiral Chekov in a fan film entitled Star Trek:Renegades.  By this point in his life, he had faced a personal tragedy which brings me to my meeting him the following year.

In 2010, Walter Koenig’s son, Andrew, committed suicide. It was a big story in the news at the time and I recall the video footage of Walter and his wife Judy, breaking the news, obviously heartbroken.

Here we were six years later and I go to meet Mr Koenig to get his autograph and he sits behind his desk, dutifully singing away, as lots of middle aged folk like me come up to talk about the good old days of Star Trek.  As you arrived at the front of the queue, you were invited to sit in a chair opposite Walter and as I neared my chance to claim that chair I noticed that he hardly lifted his head, he was just signing and offering the odd handshake. He would nod along a people spouted their praise in his direction but it was clear he was in a sombre or pensive mood. Maybe, I thought, he's just tired?

So it was now my time in the chair, I handed my photograph and he glanced up from under his ubiquitous hat, and asked, ‘who shall I sign it to?’ and I simply replied ‘Drew’. He looked up straight  into my eyes…’that was my son’s name’. 

Perhaps it was the nature of my work, I just reached across the table and rested my hand on his arm and nodded. After another moment he signed the picture and he rose and shook my hand and I walked away. 

I have met Mr Koenig several times since but I’ve never asked for an autograph. I think I have the best one already. 

That brings this section to an end, back next week if you’re up for some more, as we visit the ‘L’s. 

Shazad Latif

Valerie Leon

Ken Leung

John Levene

Norman Lovett