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This is your Life, Richard A. Coyle! 1977 to 1996
I grew up reading
Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov books and watching science
fiction. I remember "Flash Gordon" (made in then West Germany), "Rocky
Jones, Space Ranger," "Forbidden Planet," George Pal's "War of the
Worlds," , "Twilight Zone," "My
Living Doll," "My Favorite Martian," "Outer Limits,"
"Man into Space," "Lost in Space,"
then came "Star Trek," arguably the best of all TV sci-fi shows.
I discovered science fiction fandom when I attended the first
screening on the first day of Star Wars. There was a poster for something called
a Star Trek convention and the catcher was that Robert Heinlein was a guest. After a
lifetime (I was an "old" 29 at the time) of not being one of the in-crowd, I
found "heaven", a place where I was among my own species: fans.
And lo and behold, there was a second convention that
summer along with people dressing up as their favorite sci-fi characters in
costume. By drawing from my own childhood favorites and aiming for an easy
costume to make,
I went to a second convention dressed as that West German TV show hero, Flash
Gordon. It was a T-shirt with a lightening bolt, black pants, black boots, and a
wide belt. All I needed was a raygun.
I had an old toy pistol, a Johnny Magumba automatic and a
CB radio microphone. Briefly: I gutted the microphone for the shell, removed the
automatic slide to the toy gun, glued the CB microphone in its place, mounted an
aluminum tuning knob from electronic equipment on the barrel for a muzzle tip
and
gutted a Mego Star Trek Communicator to use its sound effects for the raygun. I
used the CB microphone clip to make a Holster ala Star Trek and went to the con.
My first Hall Costume. (I'm the one on the right...)
I was a hit.
Everyone wanted to see and play with the gun (this was 1977). I even entered the
masquerade and at first was laughed at, until I drew the raygun and blasted the
audience, that got a big hand from those who survived.
The next Phoenix convention was coming the next year, something called Worldcon. As I
discovered that conventions had been going on
for years, I thought this could be a way to switch from a declining TV repair
business to something fun that I loved. I started planning on a line of new,
original rayguns to sell at these conventions. With a couple of friends, we
whacked together a few machine gun type raygun models with sound and light
effects and went off to conventions.
(This is a picture of one of those blasters at
World Con.)
We were hits -
again. It took over three days for me to work my way through the dealers' room. I
could not move without drawing a crowd. Every time I was asked to shoot the
blaster, it drew dozens to hundreds of onlookers.
I started working every convention I could get to, quickly
running into the problem of not being able to make enough rayguns as well as work every
convention. With a wife and two children I needed steadier income. I
started buying models from other prop makers to sell and tried to wholesale my
models to other dealers, in the hope of becoming busy enough to be able to hire
a crew to make the models and let me work the cons.
I heard that the editor of Starlog was going to be a guest
at a StarCon convention in Denver, so I set my sights on meeting him and seeing if I
could work a deal to mass market my models. I made a deal with Kerry O’Quinn
of Starlog magazine to make rayguns and for them to advertise and sell them.
This deal fell through when they failed to run the first ad before Christmas, a
crucial selling time. With no income coming in at that time and other
problems, my wife of 13 years asked for a divorce
.
I moved to Los Angeles, looking for a place to live and set
up shop. It was during this transition time when Starlog started running the
ads and getting orders I could not promptly fill. (I did indeed fill them just not as fast as the customers,
StarLog and I would have liked...) The deal fell through.
I went on
making rayguns and working conventions and met Jackie, now my wife.
Due to a campaign to stop mock weapon wars and games with peace bonding and rules to prevent
those games, sales for original rayguns were fast disappearing. Instead, it
seemed that the sought after thing was now reproductions of movie and TV props.
Having given up living in Los Angeles with its escalating
costs, I returned to Mesa, Arizona. From there we did Worldcon in Denver, aka
the "Mile Away Con," due to the dealers' room being about a mile away from almost all
of the rest of the cons' main rooms.
This was around the time I received a call from Modern
Props, a prop and set piece rental shop for TV shows and film. Their specialty
was the futuristic look in furniture and props including tools and instruments
and, of course, rayguns. They wanted to buy many of my original guns and
inquired if I could make some changes to suit their needs, and I was happy to comply. I sold them three to four styles, all without sound, and a
newer, more selectable light driver system. They placed a few orders:
They then asked if I could create a wrist
communicator for the small film, "Angel of Heat," a soft semi-porn film staring Marilyn Chambers
as a Secret Agent of a Special Unit of super spies. It was never worn on the wrist but carried on their belts.
Please note, due to the number of pictures and details to
talk about, what I would like to do is to point you to other
articles on each film and prop job, as there is so much to cover on almost each
film, it would make this article about 10 times longer.
Then came the big one, Star Trek 2. (Please Look to Star Trek
2.) (coming soon)
Modern Props called to say they were working on "Star Trek
2" and could really use my help. Could I relocate back to Los Angeles? I
said I will need a place to work and to live, and they said they would set both
up for us, just get here ASAP!
They found a place that was a
sub-rental of a woodworkers' shop in the same building they were renting which
would allow me to get right to work. They said that they would help us get a place to
live once we got there.
This didn't happen. We loaded everything
up, left Mesa and drove back to Los Angeles, but while they had the shop, they could not get us
a place to stay, as they were not paying me enough to get a place. (once we
finished Star Trek 2 there really was not much work)
They said I
needed to have Jackie find a job and find a place to live. So we parked the
van in front of the shop and lived out of it for about four months, running
electrical cords into the building.
I didn't mind too much. I was so excited to be working on
"Star Trek 2."
I subcontracted to Modern Props on that
film and had a great time, but afterward found work too spotty with them. I was
still living out of my van...in front of the same work shop I had sub-rented to build
props and
started hunting for full time employment and found it in another prop rental
shop, "The Hand Prop Room." With a steady paycheck I was at last able to rent a
place to live.
And the props left behind at Modern props, well...Like Mummies and Zombies my stuff kept being resurrected in
films and TV Shows, such as:
"Airwolf" (Flight helmet).
"Slapstick of Another Kind" Jerry Lewis (Rayguns)
"Automan" (Rayguns.)
"Condor" (Rayguns)
"Murder in Space" (Rayguns)
"Murder by Moonlight" (yes, that is my gun)
"Powers of Matthew Star" (Rayguns and props)
"Re-Animator" (A medical Probe)
"The Last Starfighter" (Scanner and consoles)
"Trancers" (Raygun)
The job interview at "The Hand Prop Room" was fun. I took a box of my props with me,
my résumé as it were. While I'm being interviewed by Mr. John Ramsey in walks the owner, Mr. Allen Levine. He looks at the props all over the tables
and asks, "Where did these all come from?" John said, " This guy
made them. I'm interviewing him for a job." Allen replied, "Right,
I want him in here by Monday!" And I was hired.
