About the character:
Christopher Pike is the first captain on the star class space ship
USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from the year 2251 to 2263. That year he
saves some cadets out of a burning training craft and becomes disabled.
The great dose of delta radiation, he then was exposed to, makes
him a vegetable and chains him to a wheelchair. As he also cannot
talk, it is a lamp on the chair, that can answer for him with two
options: 1 flash for "yes" and 2 for "no" controlled
by the means of his brain waves.
About the actor:
Henry Herman McKinnies Jr., who as an actor called himself Jeffrey
Hunter, is born November 25 1926 in New Orleans, Louisiana in USA,
but moves with his parents in 1930 to Milwaukee. In his youth he
tries the acting in a countless appearances on the local stage,
but he also let himself finish high school, from which he graduates
in 1945.
Subsequently he do his military service in the american fleet
by the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, but already after
a year (1946) he is discharged on the grounds of his health.
But Jeffrey Hunter is not letting himself to be put down by that
and starts to study in the School of Speech on the Northwestern
University, from where he gets a bachelor in 1949. The next year
from 1949-1950 he completes his studies on the University of California
in Los Angeles the same year he is "discovered" by talent
scouts for Paramount and 20th Century Fox. But it is Fox, who engage
him on a contract (it was back then, when actors were engaged at
the movie companies and not, as it is today, payed from project
to project) from 1950-1959.
From 1963-1965 it is Warner Bros. who has him employed, but before
the expiration of the contract he works in 1964 for Desilu Studios
(later on bought and merged with Paramount in 1967) on Gene Roddenberry's
science fiction projekt "Star Trek". The PILOT episode
is "The Cage" and he plays the character as captain Christopher
Pike. They are shooting from 12 December 1964 and 12 days forth.
The episode is edited in January 1965 and showned before the executive
chiefs of the TV station NBC in February. The 65 minutes long episode
is not approved and for that reason not aired.
Gene Roddenberry writes TV history in the USA, when he is allowed
to make another PILOT episode, but unfortunately Jeffrey Hunter
do not want to be in it. His wife does not like the series, so instead
the job is assigned to the canadian actor William
Shatner.
But even though Jeffrey Hunter do not want to appear in "Star
Trek", he does it one more time... and then yet. In the two
part episode "The Menagerie" (16/17) a number of scenes
from the unaired "The Cage" (1) [PILOT 1] are used, and
they are edited with the new scenes of a now disabled Christopher
Pike (played by Sean Kenney), who in an accident were exposed to
delta radiation, who made him paralysed in his whole body, with
the exception of the brain. The old story is now turned into evidence,
that at the same time gives Gene Roddenberry the opportunity to
make use of the till now unused material. The episode part 1 is
airing 17 November 1966 and part 2 24 November on NBC and wins agreeable
"The International Hugo Award" of Science Fiction.
Jeffrey Hunter is only 42 years old. He dies 27 May 1969 of head
trauma in the town Los Angeles in the California state. Even though
he is not the Star Trek actor, who is acknowledged most, maybe least
at all, he deserves still a recognition to have participated in
the beginning of a number of TV series, that in modesty is the greatest
of the world.
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