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When 1999 moved into its second year (the liberties of Science Fiction!) an exotic new character joined Moonbase Alpha: the alien metamorph Maya, as played by Catherine Schell...
On September 13th of this year the moon is going to be blasted out of Earth's orbit and sent on a never-ending journey through the universe. Well, according to '70s Sci-Fi series Space: 1999 it is!
Although not an original member of the Moonbase Alpha team, shape-changing Maya joined the Alphans on their strange journey at the opening of the show's second series and became Moonbase Alpha's only resident alien.
Actress Catherine Schell recently recalled how she won the part of Maya. "I received a phone call from my agent saying that Gerry Anderson was sending his Rolls Royce to take me out to his house because he wanted to talk to me about do- ing the next series of Space: 1999. My agent said 'Can you go?' and I said 'Of course I can go!"'
"Sure enough the chauffeur arrived and I was taken out to Gerry's house which was somewhere near Pinewood. He started to talk to me about the part of Maya. He asked me if I was interested but told me that I would have to play an alien that was quite different from a normal human being."
"They were giving screen tests to other people - black girls, Chinese, Japanese - They wanted someone who was going to be totally opposite in appearance to Barbara Bain [who played Dr Helena Russell], which is the obvious thing to do, it's good thinking."
Maya's appearance was an important issue that had to satisfy three important criteria - she needed to be in contrast to Barbara Bain, she would have to look suitably alien but, at the same time, she also had to be an attractive woman. In his discussions with Catherine, Gerry Anderson invited her own opinions on how she thought Maya should appear.
"I said, 'let me think about it and I'll see if I can do you a sketch,' and I did. The finished version of the make-up that still has a lot of the ideas that were in that original sketch - the colouring was very much the same, the peak in my forehead and the bit around my cheeks. The sketch was actually more pronounced. I was also willing to wear a white curly wig, The whole thing was sort of racoon like with a mixture of dark and light. If you look at my first episode, The Metamorph, in which I'm introduced to the series, you can see that my ears are brown. However, when they saw the finished episode they decided to drop that idea because the Americans said that it looked as though my ears were dirty.
"They gave me the dark hair which was to make me look more human, I suppose. It was the designer's idea to give me those sort of octopus type eyebrows which he actually wanted to put all over my face. We did one screen test with these - we called them octopods - in various patterns on my cheeks and on my forehead. I said, 'Well, if you want to make acne popular we can begin here.' It was really the most ridiculous idea ever. So, we compromised and only the eyebrows were done."
Although Catherine got on very well with co-stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain and enjoyed their company she was aware that Barbara had a clause in her con- tract that stated that Catherine was never to appear as herself in the series.
"In one of the episodes there was a scene, just as a joke, between Tony Anholt [who played Tony Verdechi] and myself. He'd been injured and was in the sickbay where I come to visit him. He's reading old Earth magazines and in one of them is a picture of me as Catherine Schell and he goes, 'Oh, wow, she's a good looking chick.' I tell him what terrible taste he has and then I metamorph into Catherine Schell before I leave the sickbay. However, Barbara objected to the scene and it was eliminated.
"There was another thing - I'm not sure if it was in her contract but I found it quite strange... Each episode would end on a freeze frame but it never, ever ended on a freeze frame of me. It happened to everyone else but never on me and I'm quite sure that had something to do with Barbara's contract.
"I suppose her way of thinking was that business was business. She was looking out for herself. I don't think that I would ever have thought about doing something like that in a contract for myself. However, she's an American and she was brought up in the American schools and that's how they think. They look out for their own careers.
"I think only an American would have put into a contract that they must only be photographed from one profile. It was quite funny walking into a scene that was quite logical that you would walk in from one direction or speak to someone from one direction. One then had to be manipulated around to the other side because you were talking to the wrong profile.
"I think that Martin had the same thing in his contract but he didn't give a damn, he'd say, 'Oh don't worry, it doesn't matter'. "
As the second series progressed, clear steps were taken towards establishing a romantic relationship between Maya and Tony (Tony Anholt). The romance, however, was never given a chance to blossom.
"There was talk of doing a third series and if that had happened the intention was to develop the relationship further. However, in the second series the scripts had been written so far in advance that it was a little bit too late to do more with the relationship. I'm not sure that it would have been good had the two become lovers. I think it worked much better that they were sort of in love but they were too frightened to do anything about it. You know that the two feel for each other. I think that once you've taken the other step then it becomes something else - you're then writing a love story instead of an adventure story."
Maya's most distinctive characteristic was her ability to metamorph into other creatures, but Catherine wasn't always happy with how this ability was made use of by the writers.
"I wish that there had been more animals used instead of monsters. I did give them some ideas but they never used them. I said "If I change into a dog why does it have to be an Earth dog?" I suggested that they gave it a rinse to change the colour of its coat to make it look more alien. I also suggested putting a horn on a horse so that we could have a unicorn.'
Looking back on her very full career in film and television, Catherine finds that Space: 1999 was one of the highlights.
'It was wonderful. We laughed so much and had a terrific time. It was one of the best years of my life doing that show. It was very hard work though. Sometimes we would be working until nine o'clock at night and then had to get up again the following morning. But I never had that feeling of 'Oh, I have to go to work again', I always looked forward to it every day.'
John Ainsworth