15-19 Background Check: Finding Star Trek's Forgotten Performers

Not everyone who appeared on Star Trek got a line, a screen credit, or even their name on the call sheet. Nearly sixty years later, that can turn a face clearly visible on screen into a genuine archival mystery.

This week, The Trek Files welcomes veteran Deep Space Nine assistant director B.C. Cameron for a look at the working life of Hollywood's background performers. The starting point is a mystery explored in the latest Inside the Roddenberry Archive: identifying Al Jones, an uncredited performer prominently seen as one of the thralls in "The Gamesters of Triskelion." The episode's production call sheets tell us which principal actors were required, which sets were in use, and simply how many "atmosphere" players and stand-ins were needed but not necessarily who those background performers were. Separate Extra Talent Call Sheets from Independent Casting provide the missing names, allowing the surviving paperwork to be pieced together and Jones finally identified.

B.C. brings useful perspective to that paperwork. Before spending all seven seasons working as an assistant director on Deep Space Nine, she began her own career as a background performer and stand-in, including an early job standing in for Jane Fonda on Comes a Horseman. B.C. and Larry explore the hierarchy between credited actors, featured performers, union and non-union extras; why call sheets generally listed background by type or number rather than name; and what life was like when tomorrow's paycheck could depend on a call from Central Casting. They also look at how Deep Space Nine developed its own reliable stable of recurring background players and how "Trials and Tribble-ations" required the production to cast performers who could actually match the extras seen in footage shot three decades earlier.

Documents and additional resources

• Star Trek, "The Gamesters of Triskelion" production call sheet, October 24, 1967.
• Independent Casting Extra Talent Call Sheet for "The Gamesters of Triskelion," October 24, 1967.
• Inside the Roddenberry Archive — investigation identifying uncredited "The Gamesters of Triskelion" background performer Al Jones.
• "The Gamesters of Triskelion" — Star Trek: The Original Series, production no. 60346.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Trials and Tribble-ations"