A trip through ‘time after time’ making movies. That describes the scene at Village Books on Swarthmore last Thursday evening when filmmaker Nicholas Meyer discussed his memoir, ‘The View From the Bridge: Memories of ‘Star Trek’ and a Life in Hollywood’ (Viking), which recounts, with detail and humor, his perspective as a writer and director on the original (and successful) ‘Star Trek’ movies. ‘View’ also offers Meyer’s experiences creating the off-kilter 1970s thrillers ‘The Seven-Percent Solution’ and ‘Time After Time.’ ‘It’s hard to speak of it without giving away a lot of it,’ Meyer said of ‘View’ by way of prefacing a humorous excerpt he read about ‘the most watched movie ever made for TV,’ the controversial nuclear war drama ‘The Day After,’ which he directed in 1983. The anecdote involved how that film intersected with his dashed hopes to jumpstart his pet project, ‘Conjuring,’ based on ‘Fifth Business’ by Robinson Davies, which Meyer shepherded for six years to no avail. ‘Everyone kept saying that my [‘Conjuring’] screenplay was ‘well-written,” Meyer told 40 audience members, eliciting laughter. ‘It took me years to figure out that this was not a compliment. In Hollywood, ‘well-written’ is code for ‘I don’t love you.” Beforehand, a Palisadian-Post reporter asked if there are too many chefs in the Hollywood kitchen. ‘It’s not that there’s too many chefs,’ Meyer, a Pacific Palisades resident, said. ‘They’re the wrong chefs. It’s marketing, not movie-making.’   Originally from New York, Meyer, 63, graduated from the University of Iowa with a theater and filmmaking degree. His ‘Trek’ work aside, Meyer’s films have centered on 19th-century literary characters and personages. In 1977, Meyer was nominated for an Academy Award in the Adapted Screenplay category for translating his own 1974 novel, the revisionist Sherlock Holmes novel ‘Seven-Percent Solution,’ starring Robert Duvall (as Dr. Watson) and Alan Arkin (as Sigmund Freud). Meyer wrote two ‘Solution’ sequels, which have not been made into films. Meyer wrote and directed the Jack the Ripper thriller ‘Time After Time’ (1979), in which a time-traveling H.G. Wells pursues the notorious serial killer in modern-day San Francisco. Next month will mark the film’s 30th anniversary. ‘It holds up pretty well,’ Meyer said, shunning the idea of a Blu-Ray release for it. ‘Do you want to put a Renoir in focus?’ For ‘Trek’ movie fans, Meyer is the series’ messiah, as he wrote and/or directed the even-numbered sequels, considered the best ones: ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’ (1982), ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ (1986), and ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’ (1991), the last film featuring the original ‘Trek’ characters to reach theaters before J.J. Abrams’ reboot this summer. Meyer has been credited with saving a sinking ‘enterprise’ after Robert Wise’s original ‘Star Trek’ disappointed in 1979. ‘Wrath’ memorably starred Ricardo Montalban as the titular villain. Meyer was brought in to salvage the oft-rewritten screenplay, even though he had never seen an episode of the TV series. He revised it uncredited and, while ‘Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry disagreed with Khan’s Captain Ahab undertones, ‘Wrath,’ directed by Meyer, grossed $97-million worldwide, setting a first-day box office-gross record In ‘View,’ Meyer writes he lifted ‘Trek IV”s subtitle from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy (‘the undiscovered country’ refers to death): ‘After all, Spock would die in the movie.’ Then he learned star William Shatner ‘hates the script!’ One of several turbulent rides aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise described in Meyer’s book. Waiting in line to meet Meyer was Laird Malamed.   ”Wrath of Khan’ is at the beginning of a chain of events that affected my life and led me to an entertainment career,’ Malamed said. As a teenager, Malamed picked up on ‘Wrath”s ‘Moby Dick’ references. Amazingly, his junior high English teacher let him write a paper analyzing the film’s embedded allusions to Herman Melville’s novel. Today an Activision executive heading the phenomenally successful video game franchise ‘Guitar Hero,’ Malamed indeed showed the Post his 27-year-old book report, marked with an ‘A’ and laudatory teacher’s notes. A Pacific Palisades resident since 1990, Meyer moved to town after ‘many years in Laurel Canyon. I was raising two children and looking for somewhere that was kid friendly. I like the air here and the retro quality. I have a fantasy of [Norris Hardware] going back to being a movie theater.’ Meyer praised the efforts of another Palisadian now associated with ‘Trek’ movies. ‘I thought it was an exciting reboot of the franchise,’ he said of Abrams’ feature. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.’ Meyer has more often worked as screenwriter than director, admitting ‘by the end of filming, I’m all burned out. But I’ll probably go back to directing. I’ve got grown-up kids now so there’s no stopping me.’ When asked for an update on the progress of his Theodore Roosevelt screenplay for Martin Scorsese, Meyer replied cryptically, ‘If you live long enough, you’ll see your movies get made.’

By SONIA GEARY Special to the Palisadian-Post Through her childhood, Denise Doyen prepared for a career in dance by religiously attending practice six nights a week at the Pasadena Dance Theater. Little did she know that, several decades later, the hours she spent tapping her shoes on the floor would train her ear for the complexities of writing rhyming stanzas for her children’s book, ‘Once Upon a Twice’ (Random House).   ’The rhythmical ear you have to have to be good at tap dancing, you can hear beats and meter in your head, is very helpful as a poet,’ says Doyen, a Pacific Palisades resident. She will read from ‘Once’ on Friday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore.   Doyen, who grew up in Baldwin Park, began dancing when she was four years old. Although she intended to dance professionally, she heeded her parents’ advice to have a backup plan and attend college, graduating from Stanford in 1977 with a degree in design.   After 10 years as a Hollywood dancer, she made a natural transition from dancer to choreographer when Disney hired her to direct dance musical sequences for ‘Welcome to Pooh Corner.’ She soon started directing entire episodes, moving on to ‘Dumbo’s Circus’ in 1985.   When the show ended, she began to look for another job, but quickly realized that Los Angeles had become the epicenter of animation, and that live-action shows would require her to relocate to New York. She had a hard time convincing Hollywood that her extensive children’s television experience would translate to the adult genre, so she enrolled at the American Film Institute, hoping to add more adult fare to her reel. What she found was that ambition and a degree were not enough to catch the proverbial Hollywood break. After spending several years trying to move into directing, she took a hiatus to focus on her family.   ’After five years, I was burnt,’ Doyen says. ‘I thought, ‘Hollywood doesn’t want me, but my kids do.’ I took some time off to be a mom.’ Her sons, Paul (now 21) and Max (14), benefited from her experience as she got involved with creative projects at their schools.   When Paul started investigating colleges, she became inspired to continue her education. Remembering her mother’s dramatic and inspiring performances of ‘Jabberwocky’ and ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ Doyen enrolled in the UCLA Extension writing program and began the sequence of classes to educate herself about children’s literature.   ’There were so many books that were truly special to me as a child,’ she says. ‘I just thought it would be a great thing to write books that might mean something similar to another child.’   One of her first assignments inspired her unusual poem. ‘My teacher told us think about what moved you as a kid and mine that as a potential pool for where your story will come from. I loved ‘Jabberwocky.’ I loved the nonsense of it. I wanted to write a nonsense adventure,’ Doyen says.   Her story began to take shape as she built on the first stanza that was seared in her mind. Because of the abstract and whimsical language of the poem, Doyen was adamant that the right illustrator would be integral to the success of the story.   One morning in 2003, while lamenting about her need to find the perfect artist, Doyen’s husband, attorney Michael, procured a copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ illustrated by Barry Moser. Moser, an award-winning master in his field, possessed not only a vintage style that encapsulated Denise’s vision, but an almost identical philosophy regarding children’s literature.   Both believed that children were capable of understanding far more than simple picture books.   ’Exposure to art and poetry at a young age can do great things for kids,’ Doyen says. ‘Not everything needs to be short, sweet and sunny. It can be long, beautiful and dark.’   On a whim, she checked Moser’s scheduled speaking engagements. Even though he lives in Massachusetts, he was serendipitously making an appearance that very day at Every Picture Tells a Story in Santa Monica. Armed with her story in hand, Doyen rushed down to try to meet him, but found that she had missed him by a mere five minutes. She convinced a skeptical journalist who had just interviewed him to pass along her story and information. Doyen is quick to say that her approach was unorthodox, since protocol dictates that illustrator and author are two separate entities, paired together by the publisher. ‘I probably wouldn’t have the guts to do it if the momentum hadn’t built just like it did,’ she says. ‘It all happened in the same morning. It was like the tumbling of dominoes.’ Moser was impressed with her story and agreed to be attached to her project, but even the involvement of a master illustrator was not enough to convince editors, who were worried that the language was too sophisticated for the children’s market.   In 2007, Doyen finally secured an agent at the Big Sur Children’s Writing Conference. Together, they set about finding a publisher who was undaunted by the difficulty of selling a picture book with elegant language and a dramatic theme. After multiple rejections, they found their match at Random House with an art director and an editor who were both poetry majors in college.   ’It was a tough sell,’ Doyen says. ‘My agent, Jennifer Rofe, deserves a lot of credit, as does my editor, Heidi Kilgras. She took a risk with this sophisticated, dark, picture book that echoes from another era. They really made this a work of love.’   Currently, Doyen is working on her next project, a middle-grade novel titled ‘Adventures in Nepaw.’

UCLA professor and researcher Rita Effros is at the forefront of exploring the immune system and its effects on the human body. In addition to studying the effects of stress on that system (as reported in the January 8 Palisadian-Post), the Pacific Palisades resident’s latest study explores the link between high cholesterol and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis, which affects 10 million Americans, is a disease that causes fragile bones and increases the risk of fractures. Scientists have recognized there is a correlation between high cholesterol and osteoporosis, but until now pinpointing the connection has been elusive. In the August 20 issue of Journal Clinical Immunology, Effros said: ‘We’ve known that osteoporosis patients have higher cholesterol levels, more severe clogging of the heart arteries and increased risk of stroke. We also knew that drugs that lower cholesterol reduce bone fractures, too. What we didn’t understand was why.’ Effros, professor of pathology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, suspected oxidation’cell and tissue damage resulting from exposure of cholesterol fatty acids to free-radical molecules. In the study, UCLA researchers examined how high levels of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL)’the ‘bad’ cholesterol’affected bone and whether a T cell (type of immune cell) played a role in the process. Using blood samples from healthy human volunteers, the team isolated the participants’ T cells and cultured them in a dish. Half of the T cells were combined with normal LDL and half were combined with oxidized LDL. The scientists stimulated half of the T cells to mimic an immune response and left the other half alone. ‘Both the resting and the activated T cells started churning out a chemical [RANKL] that stimulates cells whose sole purpose is to destroy bone,’ Effros said. To investigate further how the immune system participates in bone loss, the scientists repeated the experiment with mice. Half the animals were fed a high-fat diet starting at one month of age, while the control group ate a normal diet. At 11 months, the mice on the high-fat diet showed elevated cholesterol and thinner bones. When Effros and her colleagues tested the T cells of the mice on the high-fat diet, they discovered that the cells acted differently than those of the mice on the normal diet. The T cells switched on the gene that produces RANKL. The chemical also appeared in the animals’ bloodstream, suggesting that the cellular activity contributed to their bone loss. ‘It’s normal for our T cells to produce small amounts of RANKL during an immune response,’ Effros said. ‘But when RANKL is manufactured for long periods or at the wrong time, it results in excessive bone damage. This discovery revealed to us how the immune system might play a role in bone loss.’ The next step will be exploring methods to control T-cell response to oxidized LDL in an effort to develop immune-based approaches to prevent or slow bone loss. Effros and her husband Edward, a professor in the UCLA mathematics department, have lived in the Palisades for almost 30 years. The couple has two children: Rachael, a pediatrician, who also has a master’s degree in public health and does research on health policy at The Rand Corporation, and Stephen, who is married to journalist Suzanne Pardington and is an architect in Portland. Effros received a B.A. in biology from Brandeis University and then a physical therapy degree from New York University, working as a therapist for five years. She stopped working while her children were young, but in 1975 embarked on a graduate program in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania, in the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty. After completing her degree, she and her husband were offered positions at UCLA, and they moved to California.

First, it’s the painful insertion of the Novocain needle and then it’s the sound of that drill. Soon, your jaw starts to feel sore from keeping it open for so long and when you think it’s over, you learn that the dentist wants you to return in two weeks. Crowns, inlays and onlays are no fun, but according to longtime Palisadian and dentist Kevin Barrett, they can now at least be done in one visit. Barrett, who has had his practice for 30 years at 11980 San Vicente Blvd. in Brentwood, uses a technology called CAD/CAM dentistry (Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing) that allows him to complete the entire procedure in 45 to 90 minutes. ‘The big thing is that patients don’t have to miss another day of work,’ said Barrett, a 1967 Palisades High School graduate. Traditionally, dentists take a goopy plaster impression of the tooth and then send it to a lab, so that a crown, inlay or onlay can be made, which takes about two weeks. In the meantime, the patient copes with a temporary filling. ‘Those ways still work very well,’ Barrett said. ‘This is just a different, more high-tech way of doing it.’   CAD/CAM allows the dentist to take a digital impression of the tooth and Barrett and his staff can then make a crown right in the office. They are also able to make dental inlays or onlays, which are used in place of fillings for moderate decay and to restore teeth that are cracked or fractured.   To start, Barrett and his staff take a photograph of the tooth. They then prepare the tooth and take another photograph. Using the two images, they design the crown on the computer in a 3-D environment, then choose a porcelain block the shade of the patient’s teeth and place it in a milling unit for about 10 minutes.   After the crown is cut, they try it in the patient’s mouth and make any adjustments. Then, the crown is placed in an oven and glazed for 10 to 20 minutes. After it cools off, the crown is cemented into the patient’s mouth.   Barrett said the procedure is great because patients don’t have to wear a temporary, which occasionally crack or fall out.   Sirona developed Cerec (Ceramic Reconstruction) CAD/CAM in 1985, but Barrett thinks the company perfected the technology two years ago, which is how long he has used it. About 10,000 dentists in the United States use the technology, and the number is growing, Barrett said.   One benefit to using CAD/CAM is that it is ‘greener,’ Barrett said. It does not require plaster and temporary compost, and ‘all that adds up to millions of pounds of waste in the United States.’   Barrett, who attended UCLA, double majoring in history and pre-dentistry before heading to USC’s dental school, embraces new technology because he believes it’s important to always improve upon his practice. He also uses lasers for various procedures. ‘If you don’t move forward, you’re standing still,’ the 59-year-old said. Before incorporating a technology, Barrett reads a lot about it, visits the manufacturer and speaks to other dentists using it. He assesses the time and money it will take to purchase the technology and teach his staff how to use it. Then he asks himself: ‘Will it be worth it to make procedures better and more comfortable?’ ‘A technology like CAD/CAM is a huge change in this entire office for my staff and the patient,’ Barrett said, noting that his two dental assistants have to make crowns, which was not a part of their job duties before. He has a total of eight employees. ‘I have a great staff. They have been with me for years, and they want to learn more. They have flown hundreds of miles to take classes with me.’   Barrett offers advice to other dentists interested in CAD/CAM and lectures to dentists (mostly in Southern California) about the latest technological advances. He recently spoke about CAD/CAM on Fox News.   ’Technology has added a real bright light to the practice,’ said Barrett, whose wife, Lynn, is a homemaker. They have two children: Sean, 24, who works at Regal Capital Advisors in Westwood, and Michelle, 20, a USC junior majoring in business.