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The green Orion girl from the Star Trek pilot directed this M*A*S*H fan-favorite episode
She could be seen in the final frontier, the Twilight Zone and Mayberry — then she directed a groundbreaking episode of M*A*S*H.
The green-skinned Orions are one of the most well-known and iconic alien races on Star Trek. They're right up there with Vulcans, Klingons and Tribbles. Even one of the current Trek series, Star Trek: Lower Decks, has an Orion lead character, Ensign Tendi, who works in the med bay.
We got to meet this new species in the first pilot of Star Trek. Not "The Man Trap," which was the first episode aired, but the unused pilot "The Cage," which was rejected by NBC and another pilot was ordered. "The Cage" had no Kirk, no McCoy, none of the crew we would become familiar with — with the exception of Spock. Instead we had Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike, Majel Barrett as Number One, and John Hoyt as Dr. Boyce. Oh, and Susan Oliver.
Susan Oliver, who played beautiful intergalactic castaway Vina, was not actually an Orion. She was a human, who had been stranded on Talos IV. However, in one illusion created by the native Talosians to make her more appealing to Pike, she is portrayed as a green-skinned Orion. This scene was finally seen on television when "The Cage" was recut into the two-part season-one episode "The Menagerie," which addresses what happened to Spock's previous captain, Pike. The episode is regarded as one of the series' best and was one of two episodes of TOS that won a Hugo Award (the other was "The City on the Edge of Forever.")
The image of Oliver as the seductive green girl was frequently seen in the end credits and became one of the most iconic for the series. Fans all over knew about the Orions, long before Yvonne Craig appeared as one in season three. It was such a famous image that a 2014 documentary about Oliver's life was titled The Green Girl.
She was much more than a green girl, however. During her acting career, she picked up over a hundred credits, many for guest-starring roles on TV episodes. She played another alien, a Martian, in the Twilight Zone episode "People Are Alike All Over." She batted her eyes at Andy Griffith and Don Knotts in The Andy Griffith Show's "Prisoner of Love."
Later in her career, she turned to directing. She was one of the original 19 women admitted to the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women in 1974, joining the likes of Maya Angelou and Lily Tomlin. In 1982, she had the chance to direct an episode of M*A*S*H.
For fans of Nurse Kellye, played by Kellye Nakahara, the season-eleven episode directed by Oliver "Hey, Look Me Over" is one of the best. In it, Nurse Kellye takes Hawkeye to task for his shallow views of women. This episode contains the famous "I happen to be cute as hell" speech from Nakahara, as well as a heart-wrenching moment where she comforts a dying soldier.
In an interview with NPR, Nakahara said "What she was to me was a genuine person who wasn't being looked at in the same way as the glamorous girls that were coming through the compound. And when she just stood up to Hawkeye and told him off, she made it clear that there's so much more to me than you think there is. And I got mail. I still get mail. I have people coming up to me that say, as far as being Asian, you're the first role model that I had of an Asian that wasn't portrayed as an Asian, just as a person.
And I think that was — it took a long time, I think, for that to come around. I hope that it's starting to change now. But I think it's taken a long time."
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37 Comments
You mean one of the BEST-known and iconic alien races.
"Well known" is not sacrosanct, nothing that can be turned into a superlative only by tacking on modifiers, which start to make a sentence gobbledygook.
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Good story. Kellye Nakahara was cute, and it would have been nice if she had more airtime on the series, however she played the part very well.
Absolutely, outstanding in her all careers. Never knew about the directing. Had to check that one out via Wiki. Or being a pilot. But all the roles she played were memorable. Because her personality was unique and authentic. She defied the stereotype of a beautiful dumb blond hired for appearances. And (similar to Nancy Knovack) offered incredible depth and experience in her interpretation (presentation) of characters and roles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Oliver
Roddy MC DOWALL.
#look things up#