He contributed significant elements to many science fiction films and TV shows, yet you’d probably he hard-pressed to put a face to the name. Wah Chang - not to be confused with 1980s popular beat combo Wang Chung of ‘Dance Hall Days’ fame! - was a 20th Century movie and TV prop builder, and special effects expert. Not only did he design the iconic communicator and Tricorder props for the 1960s Star Trek TV series, but he also created the Horta rock monster!
That’s only scratching the surface of Chang’s notable achievements - he got his start in the 1950s on B-movies like Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Monster From Green Hell (1957), and The Black Scorpion (1957), but soon found a natural home for his work on 1960s TV, not only in Star Trek but also in the likes of The Outer Limits and Land of the Lost.
Wah Ming Chang was born in Honolulu in Hawaii in 1917 (Hawaii didn’t become the 50th State of the US until 1959), but his family moved to San Francisco by the time he was three years old where they opened a tea room on Sutter Street. Their cafe became a favourite spot for the city’s bohemians, exposing the young Chang to art and artists at a very young age. He soon took to copying the artists around him by sketching portraits of tea room visitors on the back of the store’s menus.