| Veska | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Veska | |
| Aliases: | None |
| Series: | Planet of the Apes |
| Gender: | Male |
| Notability: | Minor character |
| Occupation: | Politician |
| Race: | Chimpanzee |
| Location: | Chalo, California |
| Relatives: | Arno (son) Galen (cousin) [1] |
| Born: | 1930 |
| Died: | 2006 |
| First: | "Escape from Tomorrow" |
| Final: | Unknown |
| Actor: | Woodrow Parfrey |
Veska is a fictional ape and a minor character featured in the 1974 CBS television series Planet of the Apes. Played by actor Woodrow Parfrey, he appeared in the pilot episode of the series, "Escape from Tomorrow".
Biography
Veska was a pragmatic chimpanzee and Prefect of the ape community known as Chalo. In 3085, Veska's inquisitive young son Arno, discovered a downed spacecraft some distance away from the prefecture. Upon telling his father, Arno and he (accompanied by some gorilla soldiers) inspected the crashed vessel, but found only a single deceased astronaut (the other two astronauts, Pete Burke and Alan Virdon, had been rescued by a human named Farrow while Arno was busy fetching his father). After inspecting the partially destroyed instrument panels, Veska concluded that the designers of such a vessel did not originate form a simian environment. Arno suggested that whoever built the ship hailed from a superior culture. This observation visibly shook the child's father, and he warned him not to speak such blasphemies again. More pressing to him however, was the fact that there were still two missing humans. He sent a gorilla riding party back to Central City to tell Councillor Zaius what he had discovered. He then returned to Chalo and warned the villagers to be on the lookout of two renegade humans. Zaius' assistant Galen (Veska's second cousin on Galen's mother's side) and Chief of Security Urko were sent to Chalo to capture the missing humans.
Notes & Trivia
- The character of Veska was created by director Don Weis and writer Art Wallace based on concepts originally developed by French novelist Pierre Boulle.
- The character of Veska was played by actor Woodrow Parfrey, who had played Doctor Maximus in Planet of the Apes.
- The eyepatch worn by Veska was not planned: Parfrey contracted a visible eye infection after falling asleep while wearing the dark contact lenses that helped the ape makeup appear more natural, which became very irritated and uncomfortable. Needing a quick solution to continue filming, an eyepatch was hastily made from a piece of Veska's outfit, and worn over the 'bad' eye.