Character Insight No. 177: Lieutenant Hadley

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we profile Lieutenant Hadley, a regular background character from TOS.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp177

Hadley served as a regular bridge officer aboard Captain Kirk's Enterprise. He most often appeared at the Navigator and Helmsman stations, although he also appeared at communications on a couple other episodes. Hadley also served as a regular assistant in engineering for Montgomery Scott and as a security detail on the ship and on away missions. Essentially, Hadley is the swiss army knife of a crewman on the Enterprise.

There's some debate over what rank Hadley was, as he appeared in a gold uniform with lieutenant insignia when manning the navigator and helmsman stations, but then always had no insignia when in a red uniform on security details. That would indicate ensign, and he later appeared some in the gold uniform without insignia as well. Regardless of his rank, he clearly served enough roles to be a valuable junior member of the crew.

Like all background characters who dared to be on security detail or on the front line of the bridge, Hadley was subject to some assaults and other dangers. One example of this is when he was infected with the spores on Omicron Ceti III and joins a mutiny in the episode This Side of Paradise, and another example is when he was miniaturized and placed in stasis by Flint in the episode Requiem for Methuselah. He does not suffer any permanent injuries or death though, which allows him to become the most prolific recurring character on this series.

All told, Hadley appears in 62 episodes, albeit with no significant speaking lines to quote from. He was played by regular extra William Blackburn, who brought his normal stoic self to the role. Blackburn has been quoted as saying that he acted just as he would in real life pushing buttons and navigating a ship as a job, which is to say, without a lot of emotion. He also appeared as other characters on TOS like the White Rabbit and the Gorn Captain.

Blackburn was a professional ice skater before his acting career, and at the end of Star Trek he transitioned to a costumer in the TV business. That led to lead costumer roles on famous shows like T.J. Hooker and Night Court. Hadley ignored his Star Trek heritage for many decades following his TOS role, but he resurfaced in 2007 and partnered with Paramount to release some behind-the-scenes home movies he recorded while working on the show in the 1960s. These are a treasure trove of previously-unseen information, which proves you just never know where gold mines will come from in the history of this franchise.

So Hadley served as one of the more important faces in the crowd on TOS, and it's good to see someone serve on security detail without dying. So maybe there's hope for Ensign Williams and the other red shirts after all.

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