T'Pau

T'Pau, Vulcan leader and elder, is present during Spock and T'Pring's marriage ceremony in the episode Amok Time.
==Canon==
This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way. --T'Pau from "Amok Time"
T'Pau greets Spock with the Vulcan hand salute, and he returns it. He kneels before her and she puts her hand on the side of his head, in what knowledgeable viewers would recognize as establishing mental contact. Fans speculate that this could be a simple mind-touch greeting or she could be seeing how far along he is in pon farr. She expresses doubt about the "outworlders"' presence, but accepts that they are his friends. She speaks of the ceremony's antiquity and importance.
When T'Pring issues her challenge, T'Pau takes this in stride and tells the earthmen what will happen. When they choose to stay, she says "Spock chose his friends well." Spock breaks through the silence of plak-tow for his friend's sake, and we see what T'Pau really thinks of earth people: It is said thy Vulcan blood is thin. Are thee Vulcan -- or are thee human? She cautions McCoy not to interfere in the ritual fight, but agrees to let him give Kirk a "tri-ox" injection. When Kirk apparently dies, she says "I grieve with thee", and when Spock leaves, she says "Live long and prosper, Spock". 
Kirk described T'Pau as "all of Vulcan in one package", and felt he could not back out of the challenge in front of her. She had also contacted Starfleet Command to request diversion of the Enterprise to Vulcan. Admiral Komack, who had been extremely hard-assed with Kirk about staying on mission, instantly approved the request.
==Celia Lovsky==
T'Pau was played by veteran stage/film actress Celia Lovsky, who had worked many times with Fritz Lang."If she had been able to stay in Europe and continue to perform in German, she would have become a great star there -- the Helen Hayes of Europe." Lovsky's agent and friend Walter Kohner, speaking about her after her death in Los Angeles on October 12, 1979. He called her "one of the great character actresses, a wonderful face, a personality of great aplomb, magnetism and humor." Lovsky acted in a lot of stage plays at the Neue Weiner Buhne, playing many different roles. She worked with Leopold Jessner and Max Reihardt. She was considered "a gifted and versatile actress whose ability to 'form her parts out of her heart and her mind' ranked her alongside Maria Orska and Elisabeth Bergner. (Stephen D. Youngkin, The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre. University Press of Kentucky, 2005.) She fled Germany with her husband Peter Lorre in 1934 to escape the Nazis. In the U.S. she performed in more than 50 movies and about 200 television shows. Ms. Lovsky had previously played an Apache elder in the 1955 movie FoxfireKohner described her as vastly amused by being cast as Saba. He said she told him she must have been the only Indian woman in history with a Viennese accent., then the deaf-mute Emma Chaney opposite James Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)All her lines are in sign language. "His deaf mother (played by Celia Lovsky) suspects the nature of the problem and follows him outside, signing 'You didn't tell her your parents were deaf?' When he responds that he expected Cleva to understand, his mother scolds him: 'You don't understand your responsibility.' Chaney tries to avert his eyes, and in a very typical deaf manner she grabs his chin and forces him to maintain eye contact, then tells him to go to Cleva." Hollywood Speaks: Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry, John S. Schuchman. Illini Books, 1999. both directed by Joseph Pevney. Pevney recommended Lovsky for the role, saying she would be "perfect", after reading Theodore Sturgeon's script.Edward Gross & Mark A. Altman, Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages (Little, Brown, 1995), p. 53. Leonard Nimoy agreed. He has told many times how he created the Vulcan salute out of a Jewish blessing gesture -- and how Celia couldn't do it, but kept her left hand in position ahead of time. Lovsky was actually the first person to give the Vulcan salute on television.
T'Pau was one of several characters which were added to the story of "Amok Time" by the episode's writer, Theodore Sturgeon, in an effort to address NBC's Stan Robertson feeling that more Vulcans than T'Pring had to be included in the episode. These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two. In the first draft script for "Amok Time", T'Pau explains to the earth visitors why, on Vulcan, the Vulcans use English to communicate with themCinefantastique, Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 68.. Other examples of T'Pau acting differently in the first draft script than she does in the episode's final version are tolerating numerous interferences during the fight between Kirk and Spock, such as Stonn throwing a rock at SpockCinefantastique, Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 97. Not written into this first draft script is T'Pau's involvement in justifying Kirk's recent diversion to Vulcan. The Star Trek Compendium. "Amok Time"'s depiction of the matriarch T'Pau was one of numerous aspects which, though introduced by Sturgeon, were then refined in a script rewrite by D.C. Fontana. In the final draft of the script, T'Pau is introduced with the following description: "Inside the sedan litter is T'Pau, an 'Elder,' a great force in the land. She is a woman of immense dignity, and her authority is obvious." Star Trek Magazine issue 155, p. 36
T'Pau was described as the only person who ever turned down a seat on the Federation Council. Her officiating at Spock's wedding was an indication that his family was extremely important -- something he'd never mentioned even to his closest friends.
Ms. Lovsky played T'Pau as a leader of great dignity and power. In her few lines, her expressions and bearing, viewers saw her as protecting an ancient and proud tradition. "Amok Time" is still Star Trek fans' all-time favorite episode. 
Never mind age picture. Celia Lovsky's T'Pau remains one of the few elderly women with that much power ever seen in any media. In a television era and a culture and society where the focus was on youth, she had an incredibly resonating presence.
Celia died of natural causes on October 12, 1979. She was 82.Celia at Findagrave
==Fandom==
===Fanon Characterization===
Fans have speculated endlessly about what T'Pau would have done when she found out that Kirk's "death" was a fake. Some suggest that she knew all along,T'Pau's Tale by fan writer TFT suggests that T'Pau did know what McCoy was doing and that her official request to Starfleet for diversion of the Enterprise to Vulcan was a response to this, saving Kirk's career.What makes a great villain? Part 1: Star Trek’s T’Pring at The Agony Booth while others believe that she did not and that she saw it as an example of how earth people didn't respect Vulcan traditions.
Another fanon speculation is that T'Pau is Spock's grandmother or great-grandmother. 
In the Star Trek "reboot" movie, Irene Roseen plays an unnamed Vulcan elder. Because she looks something like Celia Lovsky and wore her hair in an upswept style, fans generally assume this was T'Pau.
Dorothy Jones Heydt only mentions T'Pau once in her "Dorothy and Myfanwy" stories. After Dorothy and Spock have been married and living on Vulcan for several months, she writes a long letter to Myfanwy. Speaking about the wedding, she says "Did you see the expression on T'Pau's face when the incense drifted out to her?" One can imagine the ironclad old lady looking briefly ethereal.
In Kraith, T'Pau does not appear often, but we learn a few things about her. Author Jacqueline Lichtenberg stated that T'Pau's family was directly descended from Surak and were connected to him in the First Realm. Lichtenberg invented the Daughters of Tradition because a woman as in charge of things as T'Pau should not go through the emotional instability of pon farr. Males with the "kataytikh" gene have the ability to create huge group mind melds, a trait vitally important to Vulcan society in its modern form, the "Affirmation of the Continuity" ceremony. Women with the gene are sterile, never have pon farr, and their lives are devoted to public service. In a later story, Lichtenberg stated that T'Pau was very young and uncertain when she first assumed the leadership role, apparently much earlier than she'd been prepared for. She wanted to raise the age of participation in the Affirmation.
Diane Duane deals fairly with T'Pau in Spock's World. Although she is not fond of Earth people or cultures, she realizes that Vulcan must be prepared for them and sends Sarek as ambassador to learn more of them. At the book's end, T'Pau is about to die, and surprisingly chooses Amanda as the recipient of her katra essence: You have the necessary training from Seleya to manage the Gift once I have left it to you and it will qualify you as Eldest Mother of the house, whatever others may say. She is able to make her thoughts known through Amanda after she dies. Three million people show up for her funeral.
===Other Fandom===
T'Pau was an English pop group who named themselves after the Star Trek character. They had a string of top 40 hits in the UK during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and several hits in the rest of Europe, before disbanding in 1992. Lead singer Carol Decker still performs under the name T'Pau at solo shows and 1980s nostalgia concerts, and in 2013 she reunited with original band member and co-songwriter Ronnie Rogers for a 25th-anniversary UK tour. Wikipedia 
On a more whimsical note, Australian fan Betsi Ashton attended conventions in the 1970s wearing a crocheted costume including a tea cozy on her head, calling herself T'Pot.
==Example Fanworks==
===Fan Fiction===
* T'Pau's Tale by TFT. In which T'Pau figures out for herself what happened in the Challenge fight.
===Vids===
===Art===
File:Fes2back.jpg|back cover of Fesarius #2, T.J. Burnside
File:Logentries55.jpg|front cover of Enterprise Log Entries #55
File:Spectrum4.jpg|front cover of Spectrum #4
File:Beyondantaresfifteen.jpg|front cover of Beyond Antares #15
File:Surrendersmall.jpg|part of Princess of Swords's Triple Trek Goddess series with T'Pau as The Crone (2010)
File:Kaiidth2-4.jpg|inside art from Kaiidth #2/3, by Pat Seiler
==References==
She's the only person who's ever turned down a seat in the Federation Council, she's that important, I mean, she is so important she is a TOS woman allowed to wear pants! - SF Debris Review
Category:Star Trek TOS Characters