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Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand of the Original Star Trek Series, Has Died

posted by takyon on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the you're-too-beautiful-to-ignore-too-much-woman dept.
News

mendax writes:

Multiple sources have marked the death of Grace Lee Whitney at 85. Those old-time Trekkies will recall that she played Captain Kirk's luscious yeoman in the first half of the first season before being fired. However, she made numerous appearances in the movies and one episode of Voyager.

What's interesting about this story is that she was, in fact, older than Leonard Nimoy, who died earlier this year, and William Shatner, who somehow manages to hang on, probably due to his amazing hair pieces, even though she played a character who was much younger than both. She wore her age well, and she will be missed.

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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:42AM

    by looorg (578) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:42AM (#179349)

    She's is dead, Jim!

    Kirk is going to outlive them all it seems.

    • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:31AM

      by Hartree (195) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:31AM (#179368)

      "She's is dead, Jim!"

      Is that a quote from Dr. Jar Jar "Bones" Binks?

      Geez, these May the Fourth be with you Trek/Star Wars crossovers have gone way to far.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:58AM (#179353)

    That will be news!

    You fools and your old hippie TV show. Everybody dies eventually.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:09AM (#179357)

    Star Trek is dying, literally.

  • (Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:34AM

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:34AM (#179370)

    anyone know the back story?

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:02AM (#179378)

      The show's creator Gene Roddenberry was in love with another girl, and cast her instead: The doctor's nurse in TOS, and also the Computer's voice for all ST episodes, I believe. She also did the role of Deanna Troy's mother in TNG: Lwaxana Troi. Real name: Majel Barrett-Roddenberry.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:11PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:11PM (#179546) Journal

        In TFA "appearances", there is this:

        Following a day's filming midway through production on "Miri" (on 26 August 1966), Grace Lee Whitney became intrigued when an executive on the Desilu lot told her, "I think Yeoman Janice Rand has been under-utilized. The character has been developing some interesting possibilities in the past few episodes. I have some ideas–Why don't we find a place to sit down and talk about it?" After finding a private room on the lot, the man persuaded Whitney to adopt the persona of Rand in some sexually oriented role-playing, the man assuming the role of Captain Kirk. Decades later, Whitney recollected, "'You know,' he said after we'd been talking a while, 'the thing that is so fascinating about Janice Rand is her repressed desire–her hunger for sex.' 'Not sex,' I said. 'Love. She loves the Captain.' 'Same thing,' said The Executive. 'She wants the Captain so badly, but she represses it. She doesn't admit it–not even to herself. We all know what she really wants–but she herself doesn't know. She denies it. Janice Rand can't face her own desires, her own sexuality.' 'Absolutely,' I agreed. 'That's the key to the character.'" The man then insisted the sexual repression in Rand was also in Whitney and, later that night, committed a terrifying sexual assault on the actress. (The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, pp. 1-6)

        * * *

        Exclusion Edit
        After wrapping production on "Miri" (on Tuesday 30 August 1966), Grace Lee Whitney received a call from her agent, Alex Brewis, about her character of Janice Rand, while the actress was at home just a couple days into a two-week hiatus before shooting was to begin on the next episode, "The Conscience of the King". Brewis first ensured Whitney was sitting before telling her the news that the decision had been made to remove Rand from Star Trek, with Whitney about to be written out of the show and with no intent to replace her. (The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, p. 9) In reply to Whitney asking why this choice had been made, Brewis relayed to her that he had been told Rand's romantic relationship with Captain Kirk was becoming too obvious and that – because the network NBC insisted on depicting Kirk having a more varied romantic life with numerous women played by a succession of guest-starring actresses – it would seem Rand was being cheated on by him, if her relationship with him was too intense. (The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, p. 9; The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 120; The Best of Trek, p. 178) It was obvious to Whitney that this reasoning was the opposite of what the executive who had violated her had said the previous Friday night: that Rand's relationship with Kirk could be strengthened and that many story possibilities would result from expanding the participation of the Rand character on the show. Brewis told Whitney, "You have a contract for thirteen episodes. You'll have one more episode to shoot. You can finish out your contract, and then you'll be through." (The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, p. 9)

        ...Whitney at first felt bitter resentment toward Gene Roddenberry and the studio as well as feeling even suicidal, upon first learning of Rand's exclusion, but by 1976, those feelings had subsided. (The Best of Trek, p. 178) In the intervening years, Roddenberry himself repeatedly expressed regrets that, instead of keeping Rand in the series, he had given in to the pressure from the network. (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 120) In a 1998 interview, Whitney stated, "I am still often hurt when Yeoman Rand is left out of things [....] I thought I had lost a part of myself – that it was me, Grace, that had been written off, not the character." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 119, p. 56)

        Grace Lee Whitney formed her own unsubstantiated theory to account for Janice Rand's expulsion from Star Trek, suspecting it was related to the incident between her and an executive. "Because those events happened just a few days apart–the Friday night sexual assault and the call informing me that I had been written out of the show–there has always been a clear cause-and-effect linkage in my mind," she related. "I have always believed that The Executive had me removed from Star Trek because he didn't want to be reminded of what he did to me that night [....] Because I never received any official explanation, there was always that faint glimmer of doubt in my mind–the nagging suspicion that maybe I was jettisoned from Star Trek for some other, unknown reason [....] A number of conflicting theories have been advanced in various Trek-oriented books and magazines to explain why I was let go from the series, yet no single, definitive, once-and-for-all answer was ever put forward. No internal memo ever surfaced that said, 'The producers of Star Trek have decided to toss Yeoman Janice Rand out the nearest airlock because...'" (The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, p. 15) Gene Roddenberry later repeatedly expressed regrets that, instead of keeping Rand in the series, he had given in to the pressure from the network. (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 120)

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by jasassin on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:46AM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:46AM (#179391) Homepage Journal

    I feel sorry for anyone around Charlie when he hears the news.

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @09:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @09:18AM (#179438)

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Lee_Whitney_Star_Trek_1966.JPG [wikimedia.org]

    I would've been willing to do some exploring with her!

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 06 2015, @11:15AM

      by VLM (445) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @11:15AM (#179452)

      She was 36 in that pix. The original MILF?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:42PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:42PM (#179573)

      Apparently you're not the only one. Check out the post above where she was sexually assaulted, in-character it would appear.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JeanCroix on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:19PM

    by JeanCroix (573) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:19PM (#179515)
    An interesting bit of trivia - it was she who originated the women's miniskirt-style uniforms in the original series. From memory-alpha.org:

    In spite of feminist objections, it was actually a woman who was responsible for the introduction of the Starfleet mini skirts and not Roddenberry, as Star Trek lore would have it at the time. It was Grace Lee Whitney, brought in to play Yeoman Janice Rand, who made the suggestion to [costume designer William] Theiss, after she had done pre-production publicity shots, wearing the second pilot style uniforms with pants. Whitney explained, "In fact I was the one that made them do that. My concept of ladies in space were not to look like men. I read a lot of comic books as a kid, and I just saw the ladies as looking as we did. Actually it was shorts with the skirt flap over the front. Bill Theiss did that. And the black stockings, the boots, and the legs. I thought it was just outstanding."

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by number6 on Wednesday May 06 2015, @10:15PM

    by number6 (1831) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @10:15PM (#179687) Journal

    IMHO, Anne Francis cast as "Altaira Morbius" in the 1956 Sci-Fi film "Forbidden Planet" was the prototype which influenced all others, including the "Star Trek" girls.

    Forbidden Planet Anne Francis - Google Images [google.com]

     

    A bit of personal trivia:

    Yesterday night while staring at my computer monitor, and not knowing of anybody's death, I got the urge to watch a movie or TV episode.
    So I navigated to my "Film" folder and for no particular reason, I randomly chose this:

        /Film/TV--Star Trek (1966-1969)--S[1,2,3]--2004remaster,x264,AAC,MP4/S01E12 - Miri.mp4

    In this episode Yeoman Janice gets a lot of screen time and some of the scenes lingered with her in the frame for an unusually long period of time; I remember one closeup scene where Captain Kirk is talking to a young girl and Yeoman Janice is crouched and also in the frame, saying nothing for over a minute; I was more fascinated in staring at her facial expressions than paying attention to what Kirk was saying!

     

    RIP Yeoman Janice