Nona (Nancy Kovack) is one of the antagonists of the 1968 Star Trek episode ’A Private Little War’. She is a sexy, duplicitous witch woman who at first is on the side of her husband Tyree, before attempting to betray him.
The Enterprise is visiting the planet because it appears that a war has broken out between the peaceful tribes. Some of the tribes, the Villagers, are now very aggressive and carry flintlock muskets that didn't exist on the planet before.
Nona first appears along with Tyree in their tribe (the Hill People). She is a witch and dressed in black leather pants and wears a halter top made from orange fur over which her cleavage can clearly be seen. She carries a sharp knife and a bag of magic herbs. Her hair is long and dark and braided in a few places. Her husband Tyree is a peaceful leader of the Hill people and wears tan leather pants and a sleeveless vest and has blonde hair. He carries a bow and quiver full of arrows and has other simple stone-age weapons.
Unlike her peace-loving husband, Nona wants to fight against her tribe, which she defected from. However, Tyree does not want to do that.
Nona's witchery makes Tyree kiss her all over.
NONA: We must obtain the same firesticks, husband. You could be killing them instead. We could take their houses, their goods.
TYREE: Nona, enough. In time the villagers will return to their ways of friendship.
It is also revealed that she put a spell on Tyree using a herb to make him love her. (Tyree even knows this!)
NONA: In time? They kill your people! I am a Kahn-ut-tu woman. In all this land, how many are there? Men seek us because through us they become great leaders.
TYREE: I took you because you cast a spell upon me.
NONA: And I have spells that help me keep you. Remember this leaf? The night we camped by the water?
TYREE: The night of madness.
The herb leaves Tyree babbling in his lustfulness as he kisses and gropes her.
Nona heals Kirk by drawing the poison out of his system with an erotic dance.
Meanwhile, Kirk and his crew have landed on the planet. Kirk has been to the planet before and knows Tyree. The landing party is attacked by a white apelike creature known as a Mugato. Kirk is bitten by the Mugato, which is poisonous.
A Hill tribesman comes up to Nona to get her to use her magic on Captain Kirk to heal him; she comes with him to the cave.
When Nona reaches the cave, she hides at the mouth of it, seeing Dr. McCoy with a phaser heating up the rocks. An idea has formed in her sultry, deceitful little mind. The beautiful but untrustworthy witch leaves to find Tyree.
When Nona meets Tyree, he wants to know if she has healed Kirk yet; she hasn’t. The scheming vamp then blackmails her husband into telling him everything he knows about Kirk in exchange for his life.
Next, she and Tyree meet McCoy in the cave. Nona has in her hand a writhing, moving ‘root’ of sorts, which she places on the unconscious Kirk. Then, Tyree gets out a knife and slits her hand open! The Kahn-ut-tu witch-woman writhes and chants over Kirk, moaning in a mystical manner. Finally, he is healed. McCoy checks on Nona to see the slit on her hand, but to his shock it is fully healed! A tired Nona then falls asleep next to Kirk. When she wakes up, she tells McCoy that now Kirk is hers.
The next morning, Kirk is found awake standing next to a sleeping Nona. McCoy and Tyree begin talking about the Village Tribe and how they are attempting to wipe out their Hill People tribe. The Village tribe is receiving weapons from the Klingons.
Apella (Arthur Bernard) who is one of the soldiers from the warlike tribe tells the Klingons that they have captured a woman. The Krell (Ned Romero), the Klingon commander, tells the Village tribesmen to give the prisoner to the man with the most kills.
KRELL: You are late, my friend Apella.
APELLA: A quarrel by my people. A division of some skins and a hill woman taken this morning. It's hard to divide one woman.
KRELL: Give her to the man who killed the most of her people. The others will see the profit in bravery. I'll make a Klingon of you yet.
This division upsets Apella and his men as we will see later on.
Nona wakes up and seductively begins trying to get Kirk to give Tyree and the tribe some weapon so they can eliminate the opposing tribe, but Tyree objects. The men begin to talk about this, while Nona is left behind.
While they are talking, the ambitious villainess reappears and once again tries to persuade Kirk to get their tribe the weapons, now in a much more aggressive manner. Angrily, Tyree says no, and Nona storms out angrily, saying that Tyree has picked the wrong friends and she has picked the wrong husband!
Nona drives Kirk wild with her magic erotic herb.
Kirk finds Nona later, he is on a mission to try and get her to agree to Tyree's plan.
Nona teases Kirk by walking past him topless (although nothing is shown) and when Kirk catches up to her to talk she has her top on. Kirk is still partly under her power and the crafty femme fatale has a plan of her own.
Nona wants Kirk under her complete and absolute control... Seductively, Nona gets Kirk to smell her herb, which will make him become controlled by his desire towards her... Kirk is quickly overcome. He tries to resist the erotic powers of his friendis wife, but the herb is too strong. Kirk grabs her roughly in his arms and begins passionately kissing Nona.
Unbeknownst to them, Tyree has seen them in their amorous embrace. He is overcome by jealous rage and raises his flintlock rifle to his shoulder and takes aim. But then reconsiders and throws his weapon down in disgust. However, the worst is yet to come...
Kirk and Nona are attacked by a Mugato
A monster, of the same Mugato species that injured Kirk earlier, jumps out of the bushes and begins attacking Nona, throwing her onto the ground! She manages to dodge the animal's poisonous claws. But just barely.
Nona screams for help as Kirk who is still under the spell of the love herb, watches as Nona fights for her life.
Eventually, Kirk regains his sense and jumps onto the creatures back; the creature calmly sends him flying and continues attacking the beautiful vixen. Kirk spots his phaser on the ground, He picks it up and shoots the creature, saving Nona’s life!
This is the second time she has seen a phaser used and this time she realizes its full power. A treacherous idea has formed in her mind...
While Kirk is on the ground, Nona picks up a rock and hits him on the head with it, incapacitating him and leaving him on the ground. She picks up the phaser and runs off.
She is fed up with trying to get her pacifist husband to fight the enemy and now intends to leave him and join the winning side.
Nona stumbles upon a patrol of the enemy tribe.
Nona brings Kirk's phaser to the enemy tribe.
These are the same tribesmen that serve Apella. The ones that had their captured woman taken from them and awarded to someone else by the Klingon commander.
Nona offers the phaser, speaking to them condescendingly as she says that this will help them destroy the other tribe.
NONA: I bring you victory for Apella!
MAN 1: Tyree's woman.
MAN 2: She's a Kahn-ut-tu.
The patrol recognizes her as Tyree‘s wife.
MAN 1: We won't trust this division to Apella.
Nona tries to fire Kirk's phaser as she is attacked.
One of the men sneaks up behind Nona as she speaks and grabs her from behind.
Nona fights back. She is trying to bring them a new weapon and it turning on her own husband to be on the winning side.
NONA: Take me to him. He will have the strength to use this new weapon.
The men grab Nona and then grope her and begin kissing her and presumably attempting to gang rape her.
NONA: Touch me again, and this small box will kill you.
Desperately, Nona tries to tell them that she is telling the truth and tries to shoot them with the phaser, but she does not know how to do it and it fails. She then pulls out a knife and tries to kill them with it. But she is overpowered and the knife is taken off her!
"It's a trap. The woman's tricked us!"
Just when it seems it couldn’t get any worse, Tyree, Kirk and McCoy appear! Tyree seeing his wife being attacked loudly calls out to Nona.
The Enemy tribesman sees Tyree and calls out to his team.
MAN 1: It's a trap. The woman's tricked us.
The Enemy tribesmen thinking they have been set up, stab the villainess Nona, dumping her lifeless body face-down on the ground.
Because of her treachery, Nona has ignited a full-on war and Tyree has relinquished his rule of peace.
Trivia[]
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Monique in the 1964 episode ‘Hail To The Chief’ for the tv series ‘Voyage To The Bottom Of The sea’.
- Nancy Kovack appeared as the evil nurse Miss Flostone in the 1965 episode "The Brain-Killer Affair" for the TV series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Queenie, the Joker's henchwoman in the 1966 episodes "The Joker is Wild" and "Batman is Riled" for the TV series "Batman".
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Barbara, a villainess in the 1966 Matt Helm spy spoof film, "The Silencers". In the movie she attempts to seduce Matt Helm (Dean Martin) and then tries to kill him by sticking him with a knife. This attempt is thwarted when Tina (Daliah Lavi) shoots her in the back 2 times.
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Sonja, the KAOS agent in the 1969 episode "The Night They Raided Knights" in the TV series Get Smart.
- Nancy Kovack appears as Rita Mitchell, a rich snobby actress in the 1965 episode "The Moving Finger" for the TV series "I Dream of Jeannie".
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Bronwyn in the 1967 episode "Apollo" for the TV series "I Spy".
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Clio Vanita in the 1969 two-part episode "Cousin Serena Strikes Again" for the TV series "Bewitched".
- Nancy Kovack appeared as Nona in the 1969 episode ‘A Private Little War’ for the tv series ‘Star Trek’.
- Nancy Kovack appeared (with brunette hair) as Sheila Sommers, the ex-girlfriend of Darrin Stephens (Dick York) in two episodes of the TV series "Bewitched" from 1964-1968. As a blonde, she played other villainesses - see above (perhaps being a perfect cast for the trope of the “evil blonde” https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Blondes_Are_Evil).
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