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Maurice

Maurice

Snagglepussed
Admiral
We're going to occasionally do something a little different and annotate photos with factual info. We find that pictures get separated from their captions and oft mislabeled and misrepresented as a result.

Here's our first.

In an Interview with the Inglorious Treksperts, STII unit publicist Eddie Egan told the story that @Therin of Andor has mentioned any number of times re a white stuntman brought in for Paul WInfield (Terrell) being painted up dark/"blackface", leading to a complaint. We'd done some digging into that over the past year...sadly, no sign of it in the trades as-yet, but we did notice that there are no stuntmen called for on the shooting schedule, just doubles, so it seems the stunt work was a last minute decision. Anyway, we put together the following image to illustrate this.

Click to embiggen.
BlackFace Not Winfield Text+WM.jpeg
 
Maurice said:
In an Interview with the Inglorious Treksperts, STII unit publicist Eddie Egan told the story that @Therin of Andor has mentioned any number of times re a white stuntman brought in for Paul WInfield (Terrell) being painted up dark/"blackface", leading to a complaint. We'd done some digging into that over the past year...sadly, no sign of it in the trades as-yet, but we did notice that there are no stuntmen called for on the shooting schedule, just doubles, so it seems the stunt work was a last minute decision. Anyway, we put together the following image to illustrate this.
Click to expand...

Cool! The weird thing about this anecdote. It was related to us in Australia by someone (unnamed) from the set and then printed as gossip in our club newsletter. I then had the chance to interview Paul Winfield when he was in Sydney filming a movie ("On The Run") with Michael & Felippa Pate (not sure how they were connected to the movie, but we went through them to locate Paul) - and Paul was astounded that we knew about it! ST II had not yet been released. We were the first to report about the face in the window, I guess. But yes, he confirmed the rumour as having actually happened. It was controversial because painting a white stunt guy black, even at short notice, had (then-recently) become against union rules (or at least protocol/etiquette).

IIRC, some of Khan's people were stunt performers, some had been extras - and some were also Chippendale dancers in their other jobs! I guess there were several stunt people on hand even if not specifically on call in that role? (Funny that Judson Scott was often asked at conventions about being in the Chippendales, which he wasn't, but it always amused him.)

When I got to see early script drafts, years later, the Chekov-seeing-the-child's-face was there, but not the impromptu Terrell tumble. But it seems like Meyer did lots of alternate takes in those scenes and in the Genesis Cave (Saavik & David).
 
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@Therin of Andor it would surprise me if union rules prohibited white stunt performers from doubling nonwhite actors in 1981. The practice (known as being “painted down” in the industry) unfortunately continues to this day. In Hollywood—if nowhere else in the United States these days—you cross a union at your own peril.

That said, when publicized, the practice has led to public protests—the first, apparently, over the film Skin Game (1971)—so it’s not hard for me to imagine Paramount worrying about the same thing happening to them ten years later.

Does a scan of the newsletter where this item was first mentioned or your later interview with Paul Winfield exist somewhere?
 
Harvey said:
you cross a union at your own peril...
Click to expand...

That was our impression from Paul Winfield. I assume that's why the footage/stills never emerged.

Does a scan of the newsletter where this item was first mentioned or your later interview with Paul Winfield exist somewhere?
Click to expand...

Yes. Currently in storage, but I will try to dig them out soon. We were very excited to get our Terrell scoop!
 
I got this email: "I don’t know if this helps you narrow things down, but am pretty sure I first heard about this before TWOK came out. My best friend subscribed to both THR [The Hollywood Reporter] and weekly Variety and mentioned it to me, so one or both would have been the source."

We'd had a search done in Variety but turned up nothing. But we have the shooting sched and the dates when it would have been filmed so maybe we'll give it another look. THR we have less access to at the moment.

I wonder if it was Winfield himself who complained.
 
Yes, ASTREX already knew about it long before the release of ST II. Our interview with Paul was also before the US (and even later Australian) release of ST II.

Maurice said:
I wonder if it was Winfield himself who complained.
Click to expand...

We didn't get that feeling. Certainly there was no anger in his voice; it didn't seem to be a big deal for him. He was more fascinated about how we knew. ;)
 
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