#lieutenant d’agosta

[coffeecakecafe]

doodles between comms because I have Obliterated my way through Relic and most of Reliquary in less than a week. I’m so tired I keep trading sleep hours for more time to read about the horrors

[redshirtgal]

Sometimes Memory Alpha picks the worst photos to represent a character. For example, this one. Identified only as a sciences crew woman in “The Alternative Factor,”  this young lady looks like the last person in the world you would want to approach. That look would freeze winter in its tracks. But did you know this episode was not her only appearance?

But actually, she has quite a pleasant smile and seems to be on good terms with Charlene Matthews and her assistant.  One thing we can determine by both photos is that she has quite a distinctive hair style. And that makes it easy to identify her throughout the several episodes she is in.

Going by production order, this young crew woman first appeared as part of the audience in this scene of “The Conscience of the King.” Sadly, it is impossible to determine where she is because of the lighting. Even sadder, she is never given a name in any episode. So our only recourse is to either make up one or call her by her stage name, Carey Foster. And since the only made up name we could think of was Yeoman Side Flip.... well, yeah. Carey Foster is a much better choice.

Foster appears for the second time in “The Squire of Gothos” (in the upper left corner) merely as one of those crew members who blend into the background on the bridge. Although she is certainly going somewhere in a hurry. 

Her appearance in “The Alternative Factor” was her third as a science crew woman. Not only does her hair style stand out but so do her long legs. Those legs might be part of the reason the crewman is grinning while he is watching her carry her coffee starting with the moment she pulls it out of the food synthesizer slot and all the way up to the moment she joins Lt. Masters and her assistant. Btw, watch this scene on your own and see if you can identify the crewman who seems so entranced with her. One odd factoid worth noting - according to Star Trek Fact Check (http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/) , it appears that Carey Foster along another extra were upgraded from background extra to performer. Which we believe means they both were paid SAG wages. The blog backs this up with notes from the production sheet. That’s a nice little bump in salary, so evidently (as the blog surmises) both Carey Foster and another extra by the name Tom Steele were part of a deleted scene in which they both had a line. We don’t even see this male extra in the final version so we can’t tell if he is the same Tom Steele who was an extra in “Bread and Circuses.” At least Ms Foster’s part was kept in the scene after the deletions were made. 

The next time we see her is in “This Side of Paradise” when she is part of the crew who beamed down to Omicron Ceti III to join Spock, McCoy, Sulu and the others who have already decided to stay there rather than serve on the Enterprise. In the first photo, you can easily identify Carey from the back of her head. But if you aren’t sure, take a look at the second photo where she turns slightly to the side and you can tell it is the same crew woman.  Also, take a good look at the hair of the young lady in front of her. We can’t be positive, but the color and style of her hair looks very much like that of the red skirt in the front of the audience at the end of “The Conscience of the King.”  How frustrating that we recognize her in that episode but cannot identify where Carey Foster appears. 

Carey exchanges her science blues for technical services red in “The Devil in the Dark.” She is practically the first person the captain sees when he exits the turbolift and returns to the bridge at the end. And yes, that is definitely the same actress as the science crew woman we saw in “The Alternative Factor.” One look at that hair...

In “Errand of Mercy” Carey Foster is still in her red uniform and appears to be handing Captain Kirk a tricorder instead of a clipboard just before the Klingon attack at the start of the episode. 

We could not make a positive ID but we are almost sure this is the final appearance of Carey Foster in “Operation Annihilate.” The hair is close to the right color and there certainly is an upturn in her hair where it hits her shoulders. Production notes verify she is in this episode, according to Memory Alpha. However, we can’t promise you this is her. Still, she has had an amazing run. Carey Foster appeared in a total of seven episodes, which is pretty good for an extra. Not many of the ones who played a unnamed crewman got called back for more than two or three episodes. Why was this actress so lucky? 

(Above - two early publicity photos of Carey Foster. Note the hairstyle in the second photo)

Possibly because she first appeared in several episodes of The Lieutenant, the first television series created and produced by Gene Roddenberry. After all, Joseph D’Agosta was The Lieutenant’s assistant casting director and became the casting director for Star Trek’s entire run. This could easily be a coincidence but then many actors who appeared on Star Trek also appeared in The Lieutenant including Gary Lockwood, Don Marshall, Leslie Parrish, and Nichelle Nichols.  Actually, Carey’s first Hollywood break was through her talent as a dancer. She had always wanted to dance since she was a young girl. She was so talented, she was allowed to enter an elite dance studio at the age of eleven, where she was given a full scholarship. On the day of her audition, she encountered her role model, Leslie Caron. Two of her dance studio classmates were Annette Funicello and Liza Minelli.  At age 16, she auditioned for a part in West Side Story. She and the other girls followed the directions of both Jerome Robbins and Director Robert Wise and she was one of the lucky ones chosen for a part. However, because her young age required a tutor on set and specific work hour requirements, she and some other young ladies were let go. But even though her dance career got off to a rough start, Miss Foster still found work dancing in industrial entertainment films (which were the subject of a fascinating documentary called Bathtubs Over Broadway).

 A choreographer friend got her a stint working at the recently opened Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe. Frank Sinatra was the owner and she recounts that he took the younger dancers under his protective wing, asking them to point out anyone who bothered them. From there, she landed a spot as one of the dancers seen on The Dean Martin Show.  With more exposure, Carey was able to successfully land work as a dancer in several Hollywood movies. Above is her appearance as one of the Winter-A-Go-Go dancers in the movie of the same name.  She is the second dancer from the right (in front of the young man in the green sweater).

There was another better known actress in this movie by the name of Julie Parrish, who played DeeDee. She is the young lady dressed in purple in the promotional poster to the left. We know her as Miss Piper, the assistant of Commodore Mendez in “The Menagerie,” Part One. 

Carey Foster also appeared in similar roles in Annette Funicello’s Pajama Party and Elvis Presley’s Kissin’ Cousins. Carey is the one in the teal top above. At the bottom of the photo you can see a girl with a yellow bikini top. That is the female lead of the movie, Yvonne Craig. Carey remembers Elvis as being very personable and starved for conversation with the younger cast members. Annette Funicello, on the other hand, was stand-offish and didn’t spend much time socializing on the set. Ms Funicello’s name is probably not familiar to many people outside of us Baby Boomers who remember her as the darling of many a Walt Disney production.

Not listed in her IMDb credits, but confirmed in an interview with Carey Foster (as Emmy Lou Crawford) in the Santa Barbara Sentinel, was an appearance in the 1969 blockbuster hit, Hello Dolly! She is the lady in the yellow dress seated to Barbara Streisand’s left. This would have been one of her last appearances in Hollywood, although she was an assistant choreographer on 1969′s television special for Jack Benny’s birthday celebration. By that time, Carey was married and had a family. Her husband, John Robert Crawford, had a one film Hollywood career. Howard Hawks hired him based purely on his race car prowess to appear in Red Line 7000. The only thing noteworthy about that movie was the appearance of up and coming co-star James Caan. Together they had one daughter, Sean Crawford. Hollywood was losing its appeal and Carey Foster was now becoming more interested in making sure her daughter had the best education possible.

To achieve that, Carey Foster went back to using her real name of Emmy Lou Crawford and became a certified Montessori instructor. And of course, a dance teacher. Now she and her daughter Sean have opened their own studio, Inspire Dance. From that smile on her face, Emmy Lou seems to revel in encouraging young dancers just the way she was growing up.

[audiobookers]

New Audiobook has been published on http://www.audiobook.pw/audiobook/two-graves-2/

Two Graves

After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong, the kidnappers escape, and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world. But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels-perpetrated by a boy who seems to have an almost psychic ability to elude capture-NYPD Lieutenant D’Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help. Reluctant at first, Pendergast soon discovers that the killings are a message from his wife’s kidnappers. But why a message? And what does it mean? When the kidnappers strike again at those closest to Pendergast, the FBI agent, filled anew with vengeful fury, sets out to track down and destroy those responsible. His journey takes him deep into the trackless forests of South America, where he ultimately finds himself face to face with an old evil that-rather than having been eradicated-is stirring anew… and with potentially world-altering consequences. Confucius once said: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves. Pendergast is about to learn the hard way just how true those words still ring.