Time Computation in "The Pariah"
In the first Star Trek pilot film "The Cage" there is dialog between Number One and Vina, reused in "The Menagerie Part 2", that goes:
VINA: You're no better choice. They'd have more luck crossing him with a computer..
ONE: Well, shall we do a little time computation? There was a Vina listed on that expedition as an adult crewman. Now, adding eighteen years to your age then.
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/1.htm
And ever since then I have sometimes done time computation about the ages of movie and television characters and their actors, including in the Wanted: Dead or Alive episode "The Pariah" 26 March 1960.
Don Dubbins who portrayed Randy Holleran in "The Pariah" lived from June 28, 1928 to August 17, 1991, and Susan Oliver who portrayed Bess Wilson in "The Pariah" lived from February 13, 1932 to May 10, 1990. So Don Dubbins would have been 31 when his scenes in "The Pariah" were filmed, and Susan Oliver should have been 27 when her scenes in "The Pariah" were filmed.
But Randy is called a "boy", and Bess a "little girl" by Josh Randall, who was portrayed by Steve McQueen (March 24, 1930-November 7, 1980) who was of a similar age to them.
So one could supposed that Steve McQueen was portraying Josh Randall as someone of similar age to himself, while Susan Oliver and the "boyish-looking" Don Dubbins were portraying characters perhaps a decade younger than they were.
When the first Star Trek pilot film "The Cage" was filmed from 27 November 1964 to 18 December 1964 Susan Oliver, who portrayed Vina, was aged 32 years, 9 months, and 14 days to 32 years, 10 months, and 5 days. But in one scene Vina is introduced as:
HASKINS: This is Vina. Her parents are dead. She was born almost as we crashed.
That means that Vina & Susan Oliver appeared about 18 years old in that scene, since the crash was 18 years earlier.
So I can believe that the characters of Randy Holleran and Bess Wilson were supposed to be younger than 21 and thus not yet legally a man and a woman in the 19th century USA.
But would Josh Randall call them a boy and a girl?
In Wanted: Dead or Alive Josh Randall was a Confederate veteran. So unless Randall spent his entire service in a small unit in an isolated location he should have seen tens, and hundreds, and thousands, of Rebel and Union soldiers during the course of the war. So he would have known that recruiting (and in the Confederacy drafting) boys as young as 18 was legal and common, and should have seen a number of boys as young as 18 performing the same duties as men.
He should also have known, or strongly suspected from their appearance, that many of his comrades and enemies were boys younger than 18 who had lied about their ages to enlist.
And that's not counting musicians. There was basically no lower age limit for drummers, fifers, & buglers, so Josh could have seen young boys and men old enough to be their grandfathers serving together as musicians. And depending on the fictional date of Wanted: Dead or Alive, Josh might have been a very young drummer boy himself.
So after being in the Civil War it should have been hard for Josh to think of persons in their late teens, which seems like the youngest plausible age range for Randy and Bess, as helpless, defenseless children instead of soon-to-be-adults who should be just as capable as grown men and women. share