Then: Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner as Mr. Spock and
Captain Kirk in Star Trek. Courtesy NBC/Photofest.

Director J. J. Abrams, whose Star Trek Into Darkness opens this month, is not counting on the sci-fi special effects (although there will be plenty) to guarantee the success of the sequel to his huge 2009 hit Star Trek. “I want it to be real and relevant,” he says, speaking of the 12th film based on the iconic ’60s TV show. “Cool as they are, the spaceships and the gadgetry aren’t what really matters.”

For Abrams, the crew of the Enterprise is paramount. “You want to be cruising with them on an amazing and fun adventure,” he says, echoing the words of Star Trek’s late creator, Gene Roddenberry, who famously pooh-poohed the technology component of his stories: “I wrote my daydreams,” he said. And his late wife Majel Barrett-Roddenberry pointed out: “He wrote about things that he understood, and that wasn’t science, it wasn’t technology.”

Maybe Roddenberry put his other interests before science, but there are countless concepts and tools we first encountered on Star Trek that have since become, not only real, but a part of our lives.

“Their Universal Translator? Today we’ve got an app for that,” notes Linda Wetzel, who teaches a course at Georgetown University on the philosophy of Star Trek. “We may not have phasers, but we have lasers and tasers. And we can talk to computers now, and they understand us.”

But the show was never really about the gear: “The original series tackled burning issues of the day,” says Wetzel. “It explored big ideas—philosophical, political, and scientific. Star Trek asks ‘What if?’ and just runs with it.”

The show first beamed into millions of living rooms in the tumultuous ’60s when visions of Armageddon danced in our heads; the U.S. and the Soviet Union were uneasy adversaries in a nuclear stand-off. Space exploration had become a priority after the Russians one-upped us with the launch of the Sputnik satellite followed by Uri Gagarin’s historic flight into space. We responded with a huge and expensive effort to put a man on the moon.

Against this dark, historical backdrop, Star Trek broke new ground with a racially diverse spaceship crew that included Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Uhura and George Takei as helmsman Sulu. It held out the possibility that an uncertain future could have a happy ending as The Federation tried to contain the vicious and violent Klingons, whose homeworld Kronos was a superpower not unlike the Soviet Union, while the Enterprise discovered life on other planets. And the series explored timeless questions about where we were going—not just in outer space but in our lives as human beings.

As William Shatner, the original Captain Kirk, explains, “A wonderful story is something people can relate to—whether it’s a search inside or an exploration of our future in space. I think the real, lasting connection is that we entertain people. I never came to the set thinking ‘Today I save the universe.’ I usually would say, ‘Where are the bagels?’”

Professor George Slusser, curator of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy at University of California, Riverside, agrees. It’s important, he notes, that Roddenberry never let the values he promoted stand in the way of entertaining his audience. “A person who has a hard day isn’t interested in reading about philosophy or hard science,” Slusser says. “But they will sit down with a beer in their hand and watch Star Trek and encounter some grand ideas. And they may not even realize they’re getting them.”

Now: Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine reprise the roles of Mr. Spock and
Captain Kirk in Star Trek. Courtesy Paramount/PhotoFest.

As the late James Doohan who played Scotty once put it, “We knew about the lessons in Star Trek, and we knew as actors how important it was that we get them across. I remember Roddenberry once said to me, ‘If we think it’s going to be difficult for the audience to believe something, we’ll just cut to your close-up.’ I thought that was marvelous.”

Leonard Nimoy, who became legendary as Mr. Spock, says that Roddenberry’s perspective on life changed his own. “I was much more emotional before I started to play him,” he remembers. “Spock had a big impact on me personally. It made me understand better how to approach a difficult situation without the emotion taking over. And I hope some of that was passed on to the audience.”

What could have been the end of Star Trek turned out to be a new beginning. After three seasons on NBC, the series was cancelled because of low ratings. But in a serendipitous twist, reruns in TV syndication became more popular than the series had been on NBC and also attracted a coveted younger audience. That led to the first Enterprise venture on the big screen, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The flick got mixed reviews for drawing mainly on previously produced television episodes, but it scored huge at the box office with ticket sales of $82.3 million domestically, thanks in large part to Trekkers who returned to see it countless times.

The movie’s success jump-started a string of sequels, which were basically review-proof as Trekkers rallied around the box office—although many claimed, in a strange calculation with which a lot of critics seemed to agree, that the even-numbered sequels were always better than the odd-numbered ones.

Roddenberry had little involvement in Star Trek on the big screen but, nearly 20 years after the TV series had debuted on prime time, he re-imagined his vision in the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation, or TNG for short. An entirely new cast was led by Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who had the emotional control that was often missing in the impulsive Kirk, and the series’ trademark diversity included Whoopi Goldberg as an alien bartender and LeVar Burton as the blind engineer.

The series reflected a new time in America. While Captain Kirk’s Enterprise was always pressing on to a new planet and another conflict, Captain Picard headed a calmer and more sophisticated ship, complete with chamber music concerts. There was not much fighting but a lot of negotiating. The Klingons had been tamed and were now allies of The Federation. Everything was running pretty smoothly except for frequent technical turmoil ranging from dangerous radiation leaks to warp jumps that had to be calculated to the nanosecond.

To Boldly Return The Saturday Evening Post

Photo credit Michael Yarish/AMC

Matt Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, has a shelf full of Emmys and Golden Globes not to mention critical raves for the hit series now in its sixth season. The retro drama about a 1960s ad agency has left its mark on everything from fashion to the way we look at gender roles. So why is Weiner the first to admit he can be a little anxious about being at the top?

Maybe because he’s hardly an overnight success. He can laugh now about all the time he spent after grad school writing scripts, while his architect wife supported the family. Along the way, he wrote the pilot for Mad Men, but received nothing but rejections.

Weiner’s break came when he started writing for The Sopranos. That show was so hot it made his reputation, but even that wasn’t enough to sell HBO on Mad Men. Eventually it was AMC that took the gamble.

Weiner is charming—a great talker—but notoriously close-mouthed about where the series is going and whether the end is in sight. He’s already made his first bid to move to the big screen writing and directing with last fall’s You Are Here starring Zach Galifianakis and Jenna Fischer.

Question: How has success changed you?
Matt Weiner: I’m less combative. Finding an audience of even a few people after being rejected for a long time kind of recalibrates your perception of humanity, believe it or not. But I’m superstitious about the word success. It took awhile to realize that this really happened after years of privation and rejection. Ironically I’m the person who wrote, ‘Happiness is the moment before you need more happiness.’ So even the premise of the question, ‘How do you feel about success?’ is terrifying.

Q: What would you rewrite about yourself?
MW: I’ve got plenty of bad qualities that have not disappeared. I’m working on being more patient. That can be difficult to be around. I am very exacting. I think I can come off seeming unappreciative of the people closest to me sometimes because I have the complete expectation that I’m entitled to their affection. That’s probably my biggest fault—impatience.

Q: Are you different at home?
MW: I’m like every dad, I’m a joke. [He has four sons.] My anger’s a joke. My dissatisfaction’s a joke. My rules are a joke. I’m always fighting to enforce my authority. I work so much that when I come home and say, ‘Hey everybody, don’t do it this way,’ they’re like, ‘If you were here you’d know this is the way we do it.’ It’s like I’m powerless. You know what, once you take physical violence out of the equation, you really have no control over another person. [Laughs]

Q: Have you tried being a diplomat around the house?
MW: I lose my temper. I’ve got a bad temper. I’ll get mad and be swearing and using the ‘F’ word in the kitchen. Afterwards I’m so embarrassed and I look over at my kids in the next room and I’m like, ‘God, I hope they didn’t hear that.’ And I see they are laughing but trying to cover it up so they won’t embarrass me.

Q: What inspired you to be a writer and to stick with that unrealistic ambition?
MW: I had a lot of support from my parents. They loved and admired writers. We have a big poster of Ernest Hemingway in our hallway. I think that that mattered to me that they thought writing could be a heroic profession and a writer could make like a valuable contribution.

Q: What made you aim so high?
MW: I was a terrible student. I had a lot of mentors, teachers who encouraged me, kind of told me whether I believed it or not that I was a late bloomer. I gave a speech at my high school graduation and a dad in my class told me that I could be a TV writer. It wasn’t just any dad, it was Allan Burns who created The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And so I had that in my hip pocket. And then I went to college and did some acting and wrote poetry. Then I went to film school and was out of work for 5 years even though I was writing all the time. I tell people the hardest part about it was not knowing that it was going to be 5 years—it wasn’t that I was going do it, it was those years of not knowing when I was going to be a success.

Q: Don Draper the main character on the show says, ‘Everyone thinks this is temporary.’ Do you think that?
MW: I am extremely aware that the end is coming but not when. I’ve always had to sweat. I never have been sure Mad Men was going to go on again. I live and die by this thing. I want people to say, ‘That was the best season of the show ever.’ I want them to progressively say during the season, ‘That was the best episode of the show ever!’ I am always aspiring to keep it new and fresh. But you’re going to lose if you’re always trying to top yourself. You end up doing something crazy.

Q: You are pretty secretive about the plots of the episodes.
MW: I’m not trying to tease people. I just don’t want to give away to viewers what’s coming because not knowing what is going to happen is part of what keeps people interested. I think fans of the show, the ones who really love it, don’t want to know. But it is hard to talk about a new season without getting specific. At the beginning of a season I’m always like, ‘I’m starting a whole new story. If you don’t like it, then it’s not for you. But it’s not because it’s not as good as last year. It’s just different.’ No matter what happens you’ll be able to understand it. It’s a TV show, it’s not War and Peace.

Q: Are there lessons that having a huge hit have taught you?
MW: At a certain point you realize that being mature in this job is not thinking that you can do it all by yourself. You can’t forget that other people have the best stuff to offer and you need to be excited when you hear something you didn’t think about. I try to remember that I don’t always give enough praise. I get so much attention for my contribution to the series, and I wish I could share the glory a little bit more. I always mention the work of my producers and co-writers but it seldom gets printed. And I want people to know that that’s not my fault. That I try to share the wealth.

Q: What’s the right way to handle fame?
MW: I remember watching Jennifer Lawrence fall on the stairs as she went up to accept her Oscar. And I just thought, ‘If I were to write an acceptance speech, it would start like that.’ That moment to me was kind of like instant humility. She recovered with such grace and good humor. That’s a hard thing for people to understand. You just don’t want to attract the evil eye, become arrogant, rest on your laurels, and take it for granted.

Q: Does the great acceptance of the show give you more creative confidence?
MW: Trying to put a dream into words is a lot of what it is at the beginning of the season. And the ship leaves the port but you still don’t know if it’s any good. That’s the thing that never goes away. You don’t even know, even when the season’s over, even when you win an award, if you like pulled it off. And you know anyone who says they’re only interested in satisfying themselves is a fool.

Meet Mad Men Creator Matt Weiner The Saturday Evening Post

Born of Hollywood royalty, the Smash star, now 61, has found a new inner confidence. Illustration by John Jay Cabuay.

When Anjelica Huston enters a room, she commands your attention just as she does on screen. She’s an imposing presence, even a little intimidating—she’s just so tall!—until she breaks into that charming, mischievous grin. It’s quickly obvious that the actress is nothing like the scheming, tough-as-nails producer, Eileen Rand, whom she plays on the NBC series, Smash.

As Huston speaks, revealing a self-deprecating sense of humor that’s thoroughly endearing, it’s hard to separate the drama in her life from the memorable characters she’s brought to life, from the mob wife in Prizzi’s Honor to Morticia in The Addams Family.

Huston was born into Hollywood royalty. Her dad was legendary director John Huston. Her mother, John’s fourth wife, was Italian ballerina, Enrica “Ricki” Soma. Houseguests ranged from Marlon Brando to John Paul Sartre and John Steinbeck. She began acting in small roles, mainly in her father’s films. Then, just as she was coming into her own, her mother was killed in a car accident. That changed the direction of her life.

She moved to New York, and as a young woman, her grace, stature, and angular good looks led her to modeling. Richard Avedon photographed her for Vogue. The big change in her life came when her father cast her in Prizzi’s Honor, a part that earned her an Oscar and made her a star. She co-starred with her longtime love Jack Nicholson. They were together for 16 years, but once she got famous there was a lot more interest in them as a couple—always talk about the ups and downs of that relationship.

Finally, they split—another big life-changer.

When she and Nicholson parted company, Hollywood watched to see if she’d ever find her Mr. Right. The answer came when she walked down the aisle with celebrated sculptor Robert Graham–known for works like the Olympic Gateway at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in D.C., and the Duke Ellington Monument in New York’s Central Park. The handsome artist and the beautiful actress were a standout couple in the arenas of entertainment and art.

Graham also loved to draw beautiful women and their bodies. There was one star-studded showing of his work where people teased him about nude drawings that looked an awful lot like Anjelica. She casually deflected the questions by talking about “my fantastic husband” and playing up his many other accomplishments. The two were inseparable, so his sudden death from a heart attack four years ago left her shattered. Her many friends within and without Hollywood rallied around her, but she credits Smash—her first venture into series television—with coming at a “vital time” and finally filling a void in her life.

Question: I have known you for years. I listen to the laugh in your voice and you’ve got the greatest smile. Why do they keep casting you as these stern women like Eileen in Smash?
Anjelica Huston: [Laughing] Well, Eileen does have a good sense of humor. But it’s true, they like me to be these slightly sinister characters. It’s good to play against type, I guess.

“Sometimes I’m a wimp, and other days I think I can conquer the world.” Photo courtesy NBC Universal.

Q: And what would you say your type is?
AH: I really don’t match any stereotype. I never felt like I “fit in.” That’s probably what makes me a great observer.

Q: But doesn’t your character’s feistiness reflect you maybe just a little?
AH: I would like to be as scrappy as Eileen. I can certainly wrap my brain around her scrappiness. But sometimes I’m a wimp, and other days I think I can conquer the world. I wish I could plan it out a bit better.

Q: You get some steamy romantic scenes on the show. Do you get a kick out of that?
AH: It all depends on who with. But it certainly livens things up—particularly at my age. I remember at the very outset, two years ago, I said to the producers, ‘Please, give me a love interest.’ I think it’s important to see strong women who also have a very vulnerable side and who are allowed to have a sexy side.

Q: As the years pass, what has changed for you?
AH: The older I get, the more I look for a good time. I remember when I was in my 20s and 30s, I was always in some fight with a boyfriend or involved in some drama, something to feel bad about. I feel so the opposite of that now. I just like to have a good time, smile, and be with my friends. You know, tell a story, have a drink. I’m certainly not looking for angst.

Smash Star Anjelica Huston The Saturday Evening Post

Illustration by Jody Hewgill

Shirley MacLaine has lived a lot in her 78 years. She also famously insists that she’s lived centuries more in past lives.

Outrageously outspoken with a rapier wit, the Academy Award-winning actress, singer, and dancer is a Hollywood powerhouse. As a best-selling author, she’s fascinated us with her mystical preoccupation in everything from reincarnation to psychics and spirit guides. Even skeptics agree that her exploration of the far-out is an entertaining ride. Whether guesting on a talk show or walking the red carpet she always manages to get a gasp along with the laughs at her no-holds-barred one-liners.

MacLaine hasn’t given a thought to retiring or even slowing down—why should she? Her deliciously nasty turn as an old woman a small town loves to hate in Bernie, opposite Jack Black, earned rave reviews. Her latest book of witty observations, I’m Over All That: And Other Confessions, shows how she winks at looking back and looking forward.

And now she’s got a juicy co-starring role in the hugely popular Emmy-winning Masterpiece series Downton Abbey, as Lady Cora’s mother Martha Levinson, who arrives from New York to upset the household. That, of course, pits her against another icon of the big screen, Dame Maggie Smith, who plays the fearsome Dowager Countess Violet Crawley.

As we move forward in the new year, who better than MacLaine to give us a little perspective in her own irresistibly humorous and thought-provoking style?

Shirley MacLaine The Saturday Evening Post