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Wonder Woman Part 2

Click here to read the First Part of this post “Who’s that girl?” and “10 facts you need to know about Wonder Woman”.

The first Wonder Woman We Never Forget

The first attempt to translate Wonder Woman to the small screen occurred in 1967. The success of the Batman television series led Batman producer William Dozier to commission a pilot script by Stan Hart and Larry Siegel. Batman writer Stanley Ralph Ross was then asked to perform a re-write, after Hart and Siegel’s script was deemed unsuitable. A portion of the pilot, under five minutes in length, was filmed under the title Who’s Afraid of Diana Prince? The piece starred Ellie Wood Walker as Diana Prince, Linda Harrison as Diana’s “Wonder Woman” alter ego and Maudie Prickett as Diana’s mother. This pilot episode was never transmitted on television, and the project was not taken any farther. The pilot has been circulated on the Internet, however, and is of interest to Planet of the Apes fans for the early appearance of Linda Harrison, who would later go on to play Nova in the first two films of that series.

Wonder Woman’s first broadcast appearance in live-action television was a television movie made in 1974 for ABC. Written by John D. F. Black, the TV movie resembles the Wonder Woman of the “I Ching” period. Wonder Woman (Cathy Lee Crosby) did not wear the comic-book uniform, demonstrated no apparent super-human powers, had a “secret identity” of Diana Prince that was not all that secret, and she was also depicted as blonde (differing from the black hair established in the comic books). The pilot aired originally on March 12, 1974 and was repeated on August 21 of that year. Ratings were described as “respectable but not exactly wondrous”, and ABC did not pick up the pilot, although Crosby would later claim she was offered the series that was eventually given to Lynda Carter.

Though not successful at the first attempt, ABC still felt a Wonder Woman series had potential, and within a year another pilot was in production. Keen to make a distinction from the last pilot, producers gave the pilot the rather paradoxical title The New Original Wonder Woman. Scripting duties were given to Stanley Ralph Ross, who was instructed to be more faithful to the comic book and to create a subtle “high comedy.” Ross set the pilot in World War II, the era in which the original comic book began.

After an intensive talent search, Lynda Carter, who had done some minor acting jobs and had been the 1972 Miss World USA and a Bob Hope USO cast member, was chosen to play the lead role. For the role of Steve Trevor, the producers chose Lyle Waggoner, despite his brown hair not matching the comic’s blond Trevor, who at the time was better known as a comedic actor after several years co-starring in The Carol Burnett Show. He was also known to Ross as having been one of the leading candidates to play Batman a decade earlier, but it went to Adam West. Waggoner was also considered a pin-up hunk, having done a semi-nude pictorial in the first issue of Playgirl.

Although the pilot followed the original comic book closely, in particular the aspect of Wonder Woman joining the military under the name Diana Prince, a number of elements were dropped. It mainly omitted Diana’s origin including her birth on Paradise Island. The comic book Diana obtains the credentials of a look-alike nurse. Although the pilot shows Diana briefly as a nurse at one point, Diana takes on the identity of a Navy Yeoman Petty Officer First Class. As it was set during World War II, many of the episodes involved Nazis and war events.

One change, which was later to become synonymous with the show, was the transformation of Diana Prince into Wonder Woman by spinning. During the filming of the pilot, producers were trying to figure out a way to show how Diana Prince became Wonder Woman, when Carter suggested that she do a spin. The spinning transformation was later incorporated into the comics and into animated appearances such as Justice League Unlimited (prior to the Carter series, the transformation was depicted in the comics by way of Diana spinning her magic lasso around her body, with the lasso changing her clothes, or by simply changing at super speed).

During season one, Wonder Woman has the ability to impersonate anyone’s voice, which came in handy over the telephone. She did not use this ability during seasons two and three.

Unlike the earlier pilot, the comic book origins of the character were emphasized by the retention of the character’s traditional uniform (the design of which was interpreted by Donald Lee Feld, credited as “Donfeld”) with original setting and through the use of comic book elements. The series’ title sequence was animated in the form of a series of comic book panels featuring Wonder Woman performing a variety of heroic feats. Within the show, location and exposition were handled through comic book-style text panels. Transitions between scenes and commercial breaks were marked by animated starburst sequences.

Wonder Woman achieved solid ratings on ABC during its first season, but the network was reluctant to renew the series for another season. Wonder Woman was a period piece, and as such, it was more expensive to produce than a series set in the present day. Also, ABC thought that the 1940s setting limited possible storylines, with the major villains being Nazis. ABC did not renew the series, so Jerry Lieder, then-president of Warner Bros. Television, went to CBS with the notion of shifting the series to the present-day 1970s, which would cost less to produce and allow for more creative storylines. Unlike 20th Century Fox Television’s Batman, the series was produced without having a theatrical feature film in the middle of its production. In addition, none of the villains had recurring appearances. CBS agreed and picked up the show in 1977, and it continued for another two seasons. Source: Wikipedia.

The One and Only Wonder Woman

Just like no actor who donned the uniform of the Man of Steel was able to achieve the success of Christopher Reeve, we are still waiting for an actress to match the fame of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman in the public imagination.

Lynda Carter was born Linda Jean Córdova Carter in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 24, 1951, the daughter of Juanita (née Córdova) and Colby Carter. Her father is of English and Scots-Irish ancestry, and her mother is of Mexican, Spanish and French descent. Lynda Carter made her public television debut on Lew King’s Talent Show at age 5. During high school, Carter performed in a band called Just Us, consisting of a marimba, a conga drum, an acoustic guitar, and a stand-up bass played by another girl. When she was 16, she joined two of her cousins in another band called The Relatives. The group opened at the Sahara Hotel and Casino lounge in Las Vegas for three months; because Carter was under 21, she had to enter through the kitchen. She attended Arizona State University and after being voted “Most Talented”, dropped out to pursue a career in music. In 1970, Carter sang with The Garfin Gathering. Their first performance was in a San Francisco hotel so new that it had no sidewalk entrance. Consequently, they played mostly to the janitors and hotel guests who parked their cars in the underground garage. She returned to Arizona in 1972.

In 1972 Lynda Carter won a local Arizona beauty contest and gained national attention in the United States by winning Miss World USA, representing Arizona. In the international 1972 Miss World pageant, representing the United States, she reached the semi-finals. After taking acting classes at several New York acting schools, she made her first acting appearance, in an episode of the 1974 police drama Nakia entitled “Roots of Anger.” She then began making appearances on such TV shows as Starsky and Hutch and Cos and in several “B” movies.

Carter’s acting career took off when she landed the starring role on Wonder Woman as the title character and her secret identity, Diana Prince. The savings her parents had set aside for her to pursue acting in Los Angeles were almost depleted, and she was close to returning to Arizona when Carter’s manager informed her that Joanna Cassidy lost the part to her. Carter’s earnest performance endeared her to fans and critics, such that Carter continues to be closely identified with Wonder Woman.

In 1978, Carter was voted “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World” by The International Academy of Beauty and The British Press Organization. During the late 1970s, Carter recorded an album, Portrait. Carter is credited as a co-writer on several songs and she made numerous guest appearances on variety television programs at the time in a musical capacity. She also sang two of her songs in a 1979 Wonder Woman episode, “Amazon Hot Wax”. She was cast in the role of Bunny in Apocalypse Now (1979), but delays in the movie production forced her to back to the United States for Wonder Woman third season and her scenes were re-shot with Colleen Camp.  At one point in the Redux version of Apocalypse Now, a glimpse of Carter’s pinup is visible, as the only nude work ascribed to the actress outside of Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw.

When the series was canceled, Lynda Carter, upset by the overexposure of his image in the media as a sex symbol, has decided to invest more in his career as a singer and model for Maybelline cosmetics. Later, she starred the crime drama television series, Partners in Crime with Loni Anderson. She also made several works on television in the 90s, because of the re-syndication of Wonder Woman on such cable networks as FX and SyFy, and founded her own production company, Potomac Productions.

Lynda Carter latest works as actress include The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Disney’s action comedy film Sky High (2005) and a return to the DC Comics’ television world in the Smallville episode “Progeny” (2007), playing Chloe Sullivan’s Kryptonite-empowered mother. In a recent interview to Today (watch here) to promote her tour “Long Legged Woman”, Lynda Carter said she still has her Wonder Woman costume and talked about the release of the new digital-first DC Comic book Wonder Woman ’77, the digital-first series that continues the adventures of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman television series. Source: Wikipedia.

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.”
– Leonard Nimoy

This is a sad day to me because one of my childhood heroes has passed away. I grown up watching Star Trek the original series in the early of the 70s, and like millions of people the Gene Roddenberry’s series was essential to the development of my passion for science fiction since that time.

Legendary actor Leonard Nimoy, most known as Mr. Spock from Star Trek series, died this Friday, February 27, at 83, in Bel Air, California. According to his granddaughter, Madeleine Nimoy, the cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His “Star Trek” co-stars, including William Shatner and George Takei, expressed sadness at his death. Source: CNN.

“I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love.” – William Shatner

“We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to ‘Live Long And Prosper,’ and you indeed did, friend,” – George Takei

Two years ago I made a post to celebrate Leonard’s 82th birthday. I will reblog it now. R.I.P. Mr. Nimoy.

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the West End, to Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). Nimoy is four days younger than his Star Trek co-star William Shatner. His father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of the city. His mother, Dora Nimoy (née Spinner), was a homemaker. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children’s and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—with which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor.

Nimoy’s film and television acting career began in 1951, but after receiving the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni, a story about a street punk turned professional boxer, he played more than 50 small parts in B movies, television series such as Perry Mason, and Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures’ Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952). To support his family, Nimoy often worked other jobs, such as delivering newspapers in the morning.

In the 50’s, Nimoy appeared in many TV series as The Twilight Zone, Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, Colt .45 and Wagon Train. Throughout the 1960s, Nimoy appeared in Bonanza, The Rebel, Two Faces West, Rawhide, The Untouchables, The Eleventh Hour, Combat!, Daniel Boone, The Outer Limits, The Virginian, Get Smart and Mission: Impossible. After worked together in Star Trek series, Nimoy and William Shatner first worked together on an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Project Strigas Affair” (1964). Their characters were from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. Nimoy first worked with DeForest Kelley – best known as Dr. Leonard McCoy in Star Trek series – in “Man of Violence”, a season two episode of The Virginian.

Where No Man Has Gone Before

Leonard Nimoy’s greatest prominence came from his role in the original Star Trek series. As the half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock, Nimoy became a star, and the press predicted that he would “have his choice of movies or television series”. He formed a long-standing friendship with William Shatner, who portrayed his commanding officer, saying of their relationship, “we were like brothers”.

Star Trek: The Original Series was broadcast from 1966 to 1969. Nimoy earned three Emmy Award nominations for his work on the iconic program that has defined American television science fiction, both for fans of science fiction, and beyond.

He went on to reprise the Spock character in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek cast including Nimoy, who also directed two of the films.

He played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie, directed by J. J. Abrams. In April 2010, Leonard Nimoy announced that he was retiring from playing the signature character of Star Trek‘s Spock.

Live long and prosper

Spock’s Vulcan salute became a recognized symbol of the show and was identified with him. Leonard Nimoy created the sign himself from his childhood memories of the way kohanim (Jewish priests) held their hand when giving blessings. During an interview, he translated the Priestly Blessing which accompanied the sign and described it during a public lecture: “May the Lord bless and keep you and may the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon you. May the Lord be gracious unto you and grant you peace. The accompanying spoken blessing, Live long and prosper”.

After Star Trek

In the 70’s, Leonard Nimoy oined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. He played the role during the fourth and fifth seasons of the show from 1969 to 1971. He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). He also had roles in two episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1972 and 1973) and Columbo (1973), and appeared in various made for television films. He received an Emmy Award nomination for best supporting actor for the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982).

Nimoy’s interest in photography began in childhood; he still owns a camera that he rebuilt at the age of 13. His photography studies at UCLA occurred after Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, when Nimoy seriously considered changing careers. His work has been exhibited at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Nimoy has written two volumes of autobiography. The first was called I Am Not Spock (1975) and was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character. In the book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock. The contents of this first autobiography also touched on a self-proclaimed “identity crisis” that seemed to haunt Nimoy throughout his career. It also related to an apparent love/hate relationship with the character of Spock and the Trek franchise. The second volume, I Am Spock (1995), saw Nimoy communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and himself. Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy’s contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.

Leonard Nimoy has also written several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs.

Source: Wikipedia.

R.I.P.: H.R. Giger

Hans Rudolf Giger
5 February 1940, Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland – 12 May 2014 (aged 74), Zürich, Switzerland

Alien designer H.R. Giger dies at 74

The Swiss artist and designer of Ridley Scott’s Alien, H. R. Giger, has died aged 74. Giger died in hospital on Monday (12) after he fell down stairs at his Zurich home.

Source: BBC News.

Born in 1940, Hans Ruedi Giger was best known for his ‘Xenomorph’ alien in Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece for which he won a visual effects Oscar in 1980. He studied architecture and industrial design in Zurich and was known for creating strange dreamscapes.

Meticulously detailed, Giger’s surrealist paintings were usually produced in large formats and then reworked with an airbrush and usually feature scenes of humans and machines fused together. Giger described his style as “biomechanical”. One of his pieces in particular – Necronom IV – inspired the alien killer in Sir Ridley’s hit film. He also worked on Alien 3 (1992) and, more recently, appeared in a documentary about director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade film of the book Dune.

Stewart Jamieson a friend and colleague of the artist said it was “natural that people will look at Alien as being his biggest impact because of its attention but his legacy is far more than that”. “He was one of the primary surrealist artists of his generation,” he told the BBC. “He never considered himself a film designer, he was an artist and Alien was a different canvas for him to work on.”

British film director Edgar Wright tweeted: “RIP the great HR Giger. The Swiss surrealist who made night terrors into unforgettable art. We will miss you.”

Giger’s vision of a human skull inside a machine appeared on the cover of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s 1973 album, Brain Salad Surgery. He also designed covers for Debbie Harry’s solo album, Koo Koo.

Despite the dark nature of Giger’s work, Mr Jamieson said: “The old adage that you can’t judge a book by his cover was appropriate with him. He was a very sweet man. The first time we met, I was amazed by how generous and shy he was.” In 1998, Giger opened his own museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland, which alongside his own paintings and sculptures, displays works from his own art collection from the likes of Salvador Dali, Dada and Ernst Fuchs. The museum is run by the artist’s wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger. In December 2004, Giger received the prestigious award, La Medaille de la Ville de Paris, at Paris City Hall.

Last year, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle, along with fellow inductees, David Bowie and JRR Tolkien. His work has also been exhibited around the world, including recent retrospectives in Hamburg, Germany, Moscow and Istanbul.

Film Contribution:

Dune (designs for unproduced Alejandro Jodorowsky adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel; the movie Dune was later made in an adaptation by David Lynch.)
Alien (designed, among other things, the Alien creature, “The Derelict” and the “Space Jockey”)
Aliens
Alien 3 (designed the dog-like Alien bodyshape, plus a number of unused concepts, many mentioned on the special features disc of Alien 3)
Alien: Resurrection
Poltergeist II: The Other Side
Killer Condom
Species (designed Sil and the Ghost Train in a dream sequence)
Batman Forever (designed radically different envisioning of the Batmobile; design was not used in the film)
Future-Kill (designed artwork for the movie poster)
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (creature designs)
Prometheus (the film includes “The Derelict” spacecraft and the “Space Jockey” designs from the first Alien film, as well as original extraterrestrial murals created exclusively for the new movie. Unlike Alien: Resurrection, the film credited H. R. Giger with the original designs.)

Read more: Wikipedia.

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Artwork:

FHM 100 sexiest women in the world 2014

Every year FHM magazine makes a ranking of the 100 sexiest women of the world. This is the 2014 Edition. Hold your breath and count to 100. In case of emergency call 911.