John Whiting
From Hidden Frontier
John Whiting (Doctor Henglaar) is one of the original cast members of Hidden Frontier. He is currently both a cast member and the head of the makeup department (consisting of John Whiting with makeup artist/cast member Adam Browne).
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Personal History
Born June 3, 1956, John Whiting was the first member of his family to graduate from high school, whereupon he went to Phoenix, Arizona, to learn electronics at DeVry Institute of Technology. Graduating at the rather lackluster upper 49% of his class, he was hired by Hughes Aircraft, where he remained for more than 20 years, working first on the F15 radar system and later, in the Test Equipment Maintenance department. He eventually was medically retired after suffering from clinical depression for many years.
He has been married three times. The first marriage, in 1976, ended shortly afterwards in divorce. His second marriage was in 1980 and ended on August 1st, 1993 when Carol had a fatal heart attack. In 2001, he met Dectira at the birthday party of James Fox-Davis. John and Dectira rapidly fell in love, but her health started failing shortly afterwards. On July 1st, they were married by James and Susan Fox-Davis in Dectira's hospital room. On September 19th, 2001, Dectira's respirator was turned off.
Convention Appearances
In July of 2005, John was, along with J.T. Tepnapa, Adam Browne, and Carlos Pedraza, a Fan Guest of Honor at the Boston Gaylaxicon. At the convention, John was part of the Hidden Frontier presentation panel, gave a makeup demonstration, and sat on two separate panels with Hugo award winner Joe Haldeman and Hugo award winner Lois McMaster Bujold.
Hidden Frontier Jobs
John has been an actor, a miscellaneous crewmember (boom holder, tape operator and occasional CGI artist), a director ("Perihelion", "Her Battle Lanterns Lit"), a producer, a story consultant and editor, a tech consultant, assistant costumer to Barbara Clifford, and a makeup artist. He also made a Trill symbiont prop.
Makeup Work
Upset with the original makeup for his character, Dr. Henglaar, John picked up a book on 3D makeup by artist Lee Baygan and taught himself the rudiments of special effects makeup. This resulted in him becoming the makeup department. He was assisted initially by Barbara Clifford who was the costume department at the time. Later, after Barbara retired from both costuming and makeup to concentrate on her acting with Hidden Frontier, Adam Browne volunteered to help in both departments.
With and without the able assistance of Barbara Clifford and Adam Browne, John Whiting has re-created the original Star Trek series Tellarite, Vulcan, and Orion makeup, the TNG and DS9 Cardassian, Trill, Klingon and Bajoran makeups. He also has created a few aliens specifically for Hidden Frontier, the most prominent of which are the new Grey makeup and Siroc's makeup.
Acting Roles
John Whiting has played a Q ("Santa Q"), the time-travelling Lightoller ("Two Hours"), and Doctor Henglaar, the Tellarite Chief Medical Officer aboard Excelsior. He was also present in minor roles in the U.S.S. Angeles club movie (Crewman Whiting and a member of clan Thalek), and their subsequent private video series, which featured the first appearance of Doctor Henglaar. He has also been a background performer in numerous episodes and various guises, if you want to count that as acting.
