REAL PEOPLE/To Boldly Go
Welcome Aboard the Starship Enterprise
How James Cawley went from Star Trek superfan—and professional Elvis Presley impersonator—to museum impresario
IF ANYONE HAD told my 10-year-old self that one day Bill Shatner would be sitting in an exact replica of the Starship Enterprise bridge that I’d built, I’d have said, “You’re crazy.” But it’s true. The first time Shatner saw my bridge, he stood there, it seemed like forever, and finally said, “Bravo, your proportions, they’re perfect.”
They ought to be. I inherited the blueprints from William Ware Theiss, Star Trek’s costume designer. I’d first contacted Theiss when I was in high school in the late ’80s and wanted to make my own Captain Kirk uniform. Theiss sent me a pattern and fabrics left over from the original series. After I sent him photos of the finished shirt, he called and hired me to help with costumes for a series then just starting production: Star Trek: The Next Generation. I made sweaters for the Wesley Crusher character and spandex jumpsuits for the background crew. In 1992, when Theiss passed, he left me a few things in his will, including those blueprints.
At the time, I was working as an Elvis impersonator, touring the country with the Jordanaires. When I’d get a break from touring, I’d come home to Ticonderoga, New York, and reconnect with Star Trek. I built set pieces with my grandfather, who had a workshop in his barn. When the work started to outgrow the barn, I moved the sets to a car dealership I’d rented.
Collaborating with other Star Trek fans, I produced and shot the first episode of a web series called Star Trek: New Voyages in 2003. The idea was to do the fourth and fifth year of the original series, which had ended after three years. I played Kirk.
One of our Klingons happened to be the bodyguard for Walter Koenig, who’d played Chekov on TV. That’s how we got Koenig to play Chekov in our next episode. Then Nichelle Nichols, who’d played Uhuru, came for an episode. When she arrived on the set, she gasped. Then she just kept saying, “My God, I’m home.”
In 2014, I moved the set to an abandoned grocery store and arranged with CBS to open the Starship Enterprise as a museum.
Bill Shatner leads tours twice a year. His energy level is just incredible. They say, “Never meet your heroes.” But when it comes to Bill Shatner, they couldn’t be more wrong.
When fans come, they get a history lesson. It was the 1960s. The Cold War, Vietnam, the Watts Riots. And here’s Star Trek with every race, all equals. That’s the strength of the show, its morality. Star Trek teaches us how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. —As told to Gregg Segal
Actor and film producer James Cawley, 57, owns the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour attraction in Ticonderoga, New York.