Creation Entertainment's Official Star Trek Las Vegas Convention earlier this month was packed with a dizzying array of activities over its four days for the 15,000-plus fans in attendance. Beside a bulging schedule of featured celebrities speaking on stage — and signing autographs and granting photo ops — many of those stars took part in a variety of parties, happy hours, breakfasts, brunches and lunches (including a "Klingon Feast") to entertain and schmooze with the fans. The program also included auctions of memorabilia and a costume competition, along with several improv comedy routines, and a special concert of Star Trek music.

As usual, the dealer's room was a lively center of activity. Besides the maze of tables hawking merchandise and collectibles, there were dozens of celebrities — mostly those who did not have time on stage — signing and talking with fans one-on-one, such as Barry Jenner ("Admiral Ross"), James Horan ("Future Guy"), Kevin Brief ("Naarg"), and a woman known only as "Layla," the passerby in "Star Trek IV" who instructed Uhura and Chekov to go to Alameda.

The biggest hotspot in the dealer's room was "Orion Slave Girl Row," where three of the actress/models who portrayed the green temptresses in the last season of Enterprise were lined up together. They were Bobbi Sue Luther ("Borderland"), Crystal Allen and Menina Fortunato ("Bound"). (The prominence of these girls at the con is not overstated in the recent "Trek Life" comic strips!)

As noted in a previous story, the event was dedicated to the memory of James Doohan, who died two weeks prior. The smaller auditorium was dubbed "The James Doohan Theater," and tribute videos provided by STARTREK.COM were shown. Aside from that, "Scotty" was never far away from the thoughts and conversations of the fans and the stars.

In addition to "the four captains" (related story), the "co-stars" (related story) and the "recurring players" (related story) of Star Trek, there were a number of one- or two-time guest stars making special appearances, as well as several behind-the-scenes personnel and other special guests. We look at them in this final wrap-up of our convention coverage from Vegas.

Dennis McCarthy

This very special visit by prominent Trek composer Dennis McCarthy was of particular interest to Creation co-CEO Adam Malin, who studies music himself, so Malin took the opportunity to personally host this hour and interview this hero of his. McCarthy has written more music for the Star Trek franchise than any other individual. In fact, he proudly noted that he composed the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the very last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise — and more than 250 in between including one movie.

His 18-year association with Star Trek began when he got a call from Rick Berman, having noticed McCarthy's work from such shows as MacGyver and the V series. Berman asked, "Can you take the Alexander Courage horn fanfare, and meld it with the [Jerry] Goldsmith film theme?" McCarthy went and did that for the TNG pilot, despite warnings from his agents ("currently ex-agents") that working on a syndicated show would hurt his career. "I said, 'No. Usually you're right, but this time you're totally off-base.' It just felt really good — I loved the idea of the show, I loved the concept."

Despite a highly successful long-term relationship, McCarthy had some difficult challenges on the show. On other TV series such as Dynasty, he got used to an emphasis on character-specific themes and motifs. "So I get on Star Trek, and first thing I do is use the Jerry Goldsmith theme as a transition," he recalled, but then the producers stopped him. "We don't do [recurring] themes on this show," they told him.

McCarthy had written a theme for Patrick Stewart, and when he tried to repeat it in a second show, they stopped him again. "I said, 'But I'm trying to identify the man with music — I'm trying to give something to hang your hat on, to savor.' 'Um — we don't do that.'" Surprised, he came to learn never to repeat anything over hundreds of episodes. "Every show is like developing a musical Alzheimer's," he remarked.

He spoke at some length in music theory terms about the title theme of Deep Space Nine which he composed. "My feeling was, 'Alone in space' ... It was like being sent out to Antarctica to work. So I wanted to express that sense of loneliness, which was the sole trumpet idea." The seemingly free-form arrangement confounded many people. "I had so many letters saying, 'What is the time signature?' I had someone guessing 17:8. But it's [a conventional] 4:4." It sounds unconventional because he "anticipates" certain phrases and offsets the different instrumental lines.

There was an emotional moment when McCarthy spoke about his score for "Star Trek Generations," in particular the Nexus/Christmas theme. "My father-in-law had passed away the day before I wrote it ... " He started to break up and had to stop talking for a moment. Malin noted, "That's what happens with music, right? It becomes a crystallization of your feelings at the time ... It was a beautiful result." McCarthy continued that he wrote the whole seven-minute piece, fully orchestrated, in only an hour. He said recording that theme with the orchestra and the L.A. Master Chorale "was a great moment in time." "Probably the highlight of my musical career was scoring that. It was an experience I will treasure."

McCarthy was guest conductor at "Star Trek: The Concert" on Saturday night, a unique event that took almost two years to organize. The Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Richard McGee, performed scores from almost every Star Trek movie, including those by Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Leonard Rosenman and Cliff Eidelman. McCarthy stepped in to conduct his own compositions from DS9 and "Generations." The concert climaxed with the Original Series theme by "the dean of Star Trek music," Alexander Courage.

Corbin Bernsen

The guest "Q" from "Déjà Q" has spent far more time in his career as "Arnie Becker" in L.A. Law and "Roger Dorn" in the "Major League" films, not to mention several soaps including General Hospital currently. "But it amazes me that with one episode, more people come up to me on the street and say, 'Star Trek, Star Trek, Star Trek!'" said Corbin Bernsen ("Q2") at his first convention appearance. "It's amazing the power that that has."

Bernsen announced that he is currently endeavoring to produce a number of films for specialized fan bases. He just finished directing "Carpool Guy" with Anthony Geary of GH and other soap stars, and at the con he asked for feedback on a new idea he had called "Trek Collectors." It's about a couple of guys who own every collectible imaginable, and can't find anything new. "And one of them invites the other one over and says, 'Look what I've got.' He takes him downstairs to his basement, and he points to this pod... 'What is that?' 'Q2. I got Q2.' 'You kidnapped Corbin Bernsen!' 'I didn't kidnap Corbin Bernsen, I collected Q2' ... And all of a sudden they start kidnapping all these actors who played roles, like me, in one episode here and there." The hero is a cop at the Hollywood Division who is secretly a big Star Trek fan, and thus is able to crack the case. The audience laughed and applauded the idea. "All right, I'll start writing." (Don't steal his idea, anyone!)

Robin Curtis

The second actress to play the Vulcan "Saavik" had some very emotional stories to tell. Robin Curtis is now living in upstate New York, having retired from show business in 1999. "I went home with my tail between my legs, guys — I was sad, I wondered what would become of me." But that was due more to personal, not professional, reasons. "You know, three marriages is not what you dream of or hope for."

Her love life during her Hollywood years and afterwards was so colorful, she asserted, that friends urged her to write down her stories. "All of this stuff was very fascinating to the people in my sphere, and to all the strangers on airplanes with whom I chose to share it," she laughed. She indeed wrote a play titled "The Sexual Odyssey of a 39-Year-Old Woman" (admitting she now has to update that age reference) and she recited a passage to the audience, an internal monologue of a troubled Midwestern housewife shopping in a grocery store, before taking questions.

Being a woman so clearly driven by her heart, Curtis acknowledged that playing a stoic Vulcan on "Star Trek III" came anything but natural. "It was so hard! Oh my God! I went home at night so constipated! ... I cry at McDonald's commercials. You train as an actor to have all those emotions right at your fingertips, and here I was, so shut down, I thought I would pop." Fortunately her director, Leonard Nimoy, had a little experience with that and coached her through it.

Supporting Stars Panel

Keeping with Creation tradition, Richard Arnold, former assistant to Gene Roddenberry, hosted a panel of several guest stars in the James Doohan Theater. This time the panel was devoted exclusively to Original Series guest stars. They included three actors from the original pilot "The Cage" (seen also in "The Menagerie") — Laurel Goodwin ("Yeoman Colt"), Peter Duryea ("Lt. Tyler"), and Felix Silla, a little person who, at age 16, played a background Talosian whose small stature made the set look deeper than it really was. Also appearing was Charlie Brill, who played "Arne Darvin" in both "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Trials and Tribble-ations"; Mary Rice, who at age 7 was photographed as the young "T'Pring" for "Amok Time"; and Charlie Washburn, a legendary assistant director on the Original Series and first season of TNG who is writing a book about his experiences.

Brill related the story of how his Star Trek role came about. "My wife Mitzi McCall and I were doing a comedy act in nightclubs, and she got pregnant — I don't know how," he joked, "so we couldn't do the nightclub act anymore. So I had a friend, Lenny Nimoy, and he said, 'Why don't you meet me at Paramount Monday morning at 10:00, I'll have a pass for you to drive on.' And I drove on and my name was there, and Lenny took me into an office where I met a man named Gene. And I had no idea who this was. He looked at me and he said, 'Oh — Arne Darvin.' And I thought it was, like, a Jewish holiday." Brill did eight days on "Tribbles" never thinking it would turn into one of the most popular Trek episodes ever. "I know they liked my work, because once every 27 years they call me back."

Rice, now a mother of three in Salt Lake City, was living in Southern California at the time her mother saw an ad in TV Guide calling for girls age 7-9 who looked like Arlene Martel (the adult "T'Pring"). Rice revealed to the audience a never-before-told secret: The reason the young T'Pring looked so dour in that picture was not from being a Vulcan — it was because Mary had chicken pox! She woke up sick the morning of the photo shoot, but "the show must go on!" and she and her mother went to the studio anyway. The makeup person applying Mary's pointed ears said, "There's a bump right here. Ooh, it popped!" "I didn't say a word, my mother didn't say a word," she recalled. "I still have a little white scar where that chicken pox was."

A bit of trivia: As it was Mary's right ear that was made up with the distinctive Vulcan point, the photo of her was flopped for use in the episode. Her souvenirs from her day's work are a check stub in the amount of $53, and a transparency of the photo used on the show.