Gary Seven
Robert Lansing

Roberta Lincoln
Teri Garr

Isis the Woman
Victoria Vetri Rathgeb (Angela Dorian)

Isis the Cat
Sambo (cat), Barbara Babcock (voice)

Beta 5 Computer
Barbara Babcock (voice)

Launch Director Cromwell
Don Keefer

Colonel Nesvig
Morgan Jones

Sergeant Lipton
Lincoln Demyan

Police Officer 1
Ted Gehring

Police Officer 2
Bruce Mars

Mission Control Announcer
Bartell Larue (voice)

McKinley Base Announcer
James Doohan (voice)

Security Chief
Paul Baxley

Kirk
William Shatner

Spock
Leonard Nimoy

McCoy
DeForest Kelley

Scotty
James Doohan

Uhura
Nichelle Nichols

Sulu
George Takei

Chekov
Walter Koenig

Robert Lansing

Approached by Gene Roddenberry to guest star as Gary Seven in "Assignment: Earth", Robert Lansing at first refused.

"At the time," he confides, "Gene was a good friend, but I was a New York snob actor, come out to Hollywood. Many folks in my self-perceived position didn't do Star Trek because it was considered a kid's show, or a young show at any rate. Gene said, 'I'm writing this for you and we can play with it. It might be a series.' He said, 'Well, you don't have to, but just do this one thing for me.' So, I did. It was a damn good script and a lot of fun.

"What Gene had done," Lansing continues, "was to go to futurists and scientists and ask them what advanced societies out in space might do towards more primitive societies like ours.

"One of the futurists said that they would probably kidnap children from various planets, take them to their superior civilisation, raise them, teach and enlighten them, and then put them back as adults to lead their worlds in more peaceful ways. That was the idea behind Gary Seven.

"The fun with that show," he discloses, "was working with the cats." With obvious pleasure, Lansing confesses that whenever he meets fans, he always asks them, "What was the name of my cat?"

"We had three black cats. That was because in those days, the theory was that you couldn't train cats. Cats would have a certain propensity: One would like somebody, would want to follow them around, so that day, you would release the cat that would probably do what you wanted it to do. One of the cats took a great liking to me. It was always loose on the set when I was working, so it happened that the stuff on the rocket gantry was all ad lib. I would say something like, 'Isis, come on, you're getting in the way. You know, there is a bit of a hurry. This is not the time to be jealous.' We added meows in later."

Not a practical joker himself, Lansing confirms that the Star Trek set was still full of fun and pranks. "William Shatner and I would get mixed up and start 'camping' a scene," he remembers. "We did plenty of outtakes."

Of his fellow guest, Teri Garr, Lansing recalls, "She hadn't had much experience then, but she had this kooky personality that certainly worked. Gene saw that very early on and dressed her for it and worked her with it.

"She had a terrible time with this bit where she had to hit me with a box and knock me out. It was a small box and it was padded, just a box. She was so nervous that finally I said, 'Teri, hit me.' And she gave me such a clobber that she nearly did knock me out. Gene said it didn't look right and we had to do it again.

"I was never asked to do another episode. That was my Star Trek swan song.

"It turned out, though, that I'm better remembered for Star Trek than any of the Broadway plays I've done," he says with a bemused smile.

Source: Starlog, #149.

More information on Robert Lansing can be found on the Lansing page. After a long career on the stage and in film and television, he passed away in 1994.

Teri Garr

In a 1991 interview, Teri Garr expressed a much different opinion of her Star Trek experience:

Teri Garr appeared in "Assignment: Earth". However, Garr responds, "I have nothing to say about it. I did that years ago and I mostly denied I ever did it." She does admit that she would have been in the TV series that the episode was a pilot for, but it didn't sell. "Thank god," she says with genuine relief. "Otherwise, all I would get would be Star Trek questions for the rest of my natural life—and probably my unnatural life. You ever see those people who are Star Trek fans? The same people who go to swap meets."

How about Marc Daniels, who directed that episode? "He's dead. I liked Gene Roddenberry, but I don't remember those people. I really don't want to talk about Star Trek. That's what I told them about this interview. If it's a science fiction magazine, they're going to ask me about this stuff I don't—" She breaks off abruptly. So much for that line of inquiry.

Source: Starlog, #173.

In her 2005 autobiography, Garr talks about the job, but still no mention of the people:

And then I got my first big break as an actress. A friend in my acting class told me that they were casting a guest role on Star Trek.… This role was supposed to spin off into its own series—Assignment: Earth. It was going to be tough to get an audition—all the big agents were clamoring to get their clients seen, and my agent wasn't in that league.…

Luckily my friend from acting class had an in and helped me get through the door. I never thought I would get the part because I was still really just a dancer.… I had no real credibility as an actress.… Then I read the script and saw that in the first scene my character was flustered because she was late. I thought: Well, I'm always late. I can do late. After I did the reading they asked me to come in for a screen test. I'd never had a screen test before! They cut my hair short and put me in front of a camera. They had me turn in a circle very slowly. Then they asked me easy questions.… I was overjoyed to be having a screen test. I didn't dare hope I'd get any further, but the next thing I knew, they were calling me to appear on set. I was dizzy with joy—and that dizziness helped me get into character.

…Had the spin-off succeeded, I would have continued on as an earthling agent, working to preserve humanity.… But it was not to be.

Source: Speedbumps.

After "Assignment: Earth", Teri Garr went on to become a star. Her films include Young Frankenstein, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tootsie. She also played Phoebe's mom on Friends. In 2002, she went public with her battle with multiple sclerosis.

Victoria Vetri Rathgeb

For the first few years of this site, I had no idea who played the human version of Isis. In fact, the first thing people used to see on the home page was, "Do you know who this woman is?" All references listed her as an unknown bit player.

It wasn't until October 2005 that I received a lead from a person who said, "I don't know the name of the actress who played Isis but I do recall reading she was an ex-Playboy Playmate."

So I undertook the arduous task of sourcing photos of Playboy Playmates of the 60s. When I found Victoria Vetri (Miss September 1967, Playmate of the Year 1968), who used the stage name Angela Dorian for Playboy, I knew it was very likely this was the person. The cleft in the chin, her nose and cheek structure, and spacing of her eyes all agree. The career path also aligns. With her many small TV roles at the time, an appearance on Star Trek fit.

I went ahead and named Vetri as Isis with the thought that if I was wrong someone would eventually tell me about it.

However, the opposite happened. James Brady, the fellow who built the wonderful Seven and Lincoln Mego custom figures over on the Media page, kept track as a few sites began to list Vetri as Isis, including imdb.com.

I am happy to take the credit or the blame for this, and hope to learn more as time goes on. If you know Ms. Vetri, perhaps you'll let her know I'd like to hear her story.

Victoria Rathgeb: Prosecutors charge 1968 Playboy Playmate of the Year with attempted murder
by Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer – October 20, 2010

LOS ANGELES – The 1968 Playboy Playmate of the Year has been charged with attempted murder after Los Angeles police said she shot her husband of 20 years this weekend during a dispute, authorities said Wednesday.

Victoria Rathgeb, 66, is due in court November 1st, 2010 to answer to the charge that she intentionally shot her husband with a semiautomatic handgun.

Rathgeb, being held in lieu of $1.5 million bail, was arrested Saturday after police said they responded to a reported shooting at an apartment in Hollywood.

Her husband, identified as Bruce Rathgeb, is in grave condition at a local hospital, according to Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Bob Binder.

"Her husband is in extremely critical condition with significant injuries," Binder said.

Binder said the shooting evolved from "a longstanding dispute between the two parties," although he noted that there had been no previous law enforcement contacts with either member of the couple.

Binder would not comment on news reports that Victoria Rathgeb originally told police that a drug dealer had shot her husband.

"We investigated all possible angles to the story and came to the conclusion that she most certainly did shoot her husband," Binder said.

© 2010, Los Angeles Times

Trial ordered for ex-Playmate in husband's shooting
Former model, actress charged with attempted murder – January 21, 2011

LOS ANGELES – The 1968 Playboy Playmate of the Year was ordered Friday to stand trial on an attempted murder charge for allegedly shooting her husband down the hall from their Hollywood apartment last October.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael D. Abzug denied the defense's request to reduce the charge against 66-year-old Victoria Rathgeb – also known as Victoria Vetri and Angela Dorian – to assault with a deadly weapon.

Rathgeb's husband of 25 years testified that he left the couple's apartment last Oct. 16 after his wife accused him of being unfaithful, and that he was waiting for the building's elevator door to open when he saw his wife out of his peripheral vision about eight feet away.

"Quickly she just aimed and fired at me," Bruce Rathgeb said, telling the judge that he felt burning and stinging on the left side of his body and smelled gunpowder.

He said that his wife then put a small plastic bag in his mouth, which he spit out, and that she walked back to their apartment.

He testified that he passed out and later woke up in the hospital "in terrible pain."

"They tried to take the bullet out. I guess it was close to the heart so they left it in," he said, noting that he has a four-inch scar above his left pectoral muscle and cannot move his fingers on his left hand.

On cross-examination by defense attorney E. John Myers, the woman's husband maintained that he had not been unfaithful to his wife while the two were living separately for a few months before the shooting.

"Twenty-five years, I have never cheated on my wife," Bruce Rathgeb told the judge. "I wasn't going to listen to that all night… I have been true to her for 25 years and that's the truth."

He denied that the two had argued about drugs.

The couple's neighbour, Michael Place, testified that he saw the victim on the floor after hearing a loud noise, and noticed a bullet casing and a small plastic bag nearby.

"He said, 'My wife just shot me,'" Place told the judge. "He asked me to call 911."

The defendant was arrested the same day by the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Division and has remained jailed since then on $1.53 million bail, which the judge refused to reduce.

Rathgeb appeared in more than 30 television series and films during the 1960s and 1970s, including the film Rosemary's Baby, and television's Hogan's Heroes, Star Trek, Perry Mason, Bonanza, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

© 2010, CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc.

Ex-Playmate gets nine years for wounding husband
The Associated Press – Sep 11, 2011

LOS ANGELES – A former Playboy Playmate of the Year who appeared in the horror movie Rosemary's Baby has been sentenced to nine years in state prison for shooting her husband in the back at their Hollywood apartment.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say 66-year-old Victoria Rathgeb was sentenced Wednesday. She pleaded no contest to attempted voluntary manslaughter.

Authorities say Rathgeb shot and wounded her husband last October during an argument. Prosecutors say he recovered and was in court for the sentencing but did not make a statement.

Rathgeb was 1968's Playmate of the Year under the name of Angela Dorian. She had TV and movie roles in the 1960s and 1970s and played a recovering heroin addict in the 1968 hit Rosemary's Baby.

© 2011, The Associated Press

Sambo

Courtesy of collector William McCullars, an NBC press release dating from the original broadcast names Sambo as the cat who played Isis.

According to Robert Lansing:

"We had three black cats. That was because in those days, the theory was that you couldn't train cats. Cats would have a certain propensity: One would like somebody, would want to follow them around, so that day, you would release the cat that would probably do what you wanted it to do. One of the cats took a great liking to me. It was always loose on the set when I was working, so it happened that the stuff on the rocket gantry was all ad lib. I would say something like, 'Isis, come on, you're getting in the way. You know, there is a bit of a hurry. This is not the time to be jealous.' We added meows in later."

I think it's safe to say that it was Sambo he developed the working relationship with.