Red Snapper

Orion Slave Girl

Added 2022-07-11 02:07:21 +0000 UTC

In summer 2008, I was inducted into the Victory Variety Hour San Diego Comic Con annual show (off site from the Con) as the Orion Slave Girl from "Star Trek: The Original Series." I think I was invited to perform the role about a month before the show. Penny Starr, Jr. mixed music for one of my current acts with music from the episode, and then she knocked out a very simple costume I could wear for the performance. She asked everyone in the cast to shoot some promotional photos that she would print and we could make money from the sales. Because she has an involved day job in the entertainment industry and producers have a lot of tasks on their plate, the prints were never made.

However, I had an amazing opportunity to shoot the best images I could afford. (Mr. Snapper was behind the camera.) My friend Christopher Payne (now the special effects makeup head on "Chicago Fire") offered to paint me green and do my makeup for free.

Chris was awesome, touching up my makeup in the dry heat of the Los Angeles summer.

We went to the old Los Angeles Zoo, seen in Anchorman and the first year of our Hobo Thanksgiving. :) We didn't get a permit for this Sunday afternoon shoot. I just prowled around cages.

A green girl with red hair stands out in the park, even in Los Angeles. A green girl with her own makeup artist and a dude with a camera attract attention. A cop asked us what we were doing. We had no permit.

Chris, an absolute pro, knew exactly what to say. "We're shooting some stuff for my makeup portfolio." The cop said, "Good answer," and let us go about our business.

I moved into a different role the following year as the Fifth Element who stripped out of bondage tape to a Bjork song. (It sounds much cooler than the actual execution.) The next gal to take up the mantle performed the role for a year or two.

We performed the show once in Los Angeles and then in San Diego at Brick by Brick. I didn't have Chris to do my makeup. It was also insanely hot for a gal in body makeup, but that's a story for another day.