July 25 to August 2, 1967
This week, Star Trek was filming the classic episode “Mirror, Mirror.” Guest star Barbara Luna was scheduled to do some smooching with William Shatner. It promised to be a very provocative scene. And then something went wrong. What did it take to keep Captain Kirk from kissing the “Captain’s Woman”?
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It was the fourth day of production, July 28, 1967. Due to various circumstances, the filming schedule had been adjusted more than once already. On this day, director Marc Daniels filmed in the transporter room, then the company made a hasty move to Kirk’s quarters. The schedule was about to be changed again -- this time due to illness. Barbara Luna recalled, “When you’re working in television, there is no such thing as calling up and saying, ‘I am sick; I can’t come in.’ But, when I woke up that morning, I was so ill that my temperature was about 103 and I had no voice. So, when I got to the studio, they looked at me and said, ‘Oh my goodness, she is so contagious.’ And, of course, what we had left was the kissing scene
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with Shatner and the dialogue between us in his cabin. So, the doctor said, ‘If she just looks at anybody, they’re going to get it -- she is that contagious. You will have nobody left in the cast; you’ll have nothing to film. Send her home!’ Which is what they did. I felt so badly, because I had never, never, ever missed work. But I felt so sick that it seemed like a whole month before I could come back, even though it may have only been a couple weeks.”
Nine days passed before Luna was well enough to return to work. Director Joseph Pevney had been filming “The Deadly Years” during this time. On the last day that of filming, Pevney turned the camera unit over to Marc Daniels, allowing him to finally complete “Mirror, Mirror.” It was now Friday, August 11.
Barbara Luna recalled, “That outfit I wore didn’t fit after I’d fallen ill -- after missing those couple of weeks. I’ve always been tiny but, I guess, in those two weeks, because I was just so ill, that I must have lost a little bit of weight, because when I went back into the cabin to shoot that scene, and I’m in the doorway, whatever I was wearing, my original costume, was just hanging on me. I said, ‘No, no, no, no, not good.’ Roddenberry came in and said, ‘Put her in something else.’ And Bill Theiss, being the genius he was, put me in a bikini, and he brought in more material, and, right there on the set, I mean literally, he just draped that material on me. And I’m standing in the doorway and you could see right through it. I almost looked nude. And, for that time, this was very daring.”
As for that kiss which was nearly two weeks in coming, the second and much more passionate kiss between Kirk and Marlena in the episode, Luna said, “I enjoyed ‘the kissing scene.’ Bill is a good kisser.”
Barbara Luna recalled, “That outfit I wore didn’t fit after I’d fallen ill -- after missing those couple of weeks. I’ve always been tiny but, I guess, in those two weeks, because I was just so ill, that I must have lost a little bit of weight, because when I went back into the cabin to shoot that scene, and I’m in the doorway, whatever I was wearing, my original costume, was just hanging on me. I said, ‘No, no, no, no, not good.’ Roddenberry came in and said, ‘Put her in something else.’ And Bill Theiss, being the genius he was, put me in a bikini, and he brought in more material, and, right there on the set, I mean literally, he just draped that material on me. And I’m standing in the doorway and you could see right through it. I almost looked nude. And, for that time, this was very daring.”
As for that kiss which was nearly two weeks in coming, the second and much more passionate kiss between Kirk and Marlena in the episode, Luna said, “I enjoyed ‘the kissing scene.’ Bill is a good kisser.”
Read more about the writing and making of “Mirror, Mirror,” and all of the second season episodes of Star Trek: TOS [The Original Series], in Marc Cushman’s Saturn Award winning book, These Are the Voyages, TOS: Season Two, available here.
