Years ago, I read in what I thought was a serious publication that GLW’s addiction was “sex”; clinically she had classed herself as a sex addict.
I just took it for fact and moved on. It’s a real thing, just like any other addiction. Not my business. Hollywood has ruined many a good person.
But, since no one here discussing her addictions has mentioned that, it must have been a complete fabrication of a story. So then, was the story made up deliberately, or just came from a misunderstanding? Seems especially mean-spirited, like regular drug addiction isn’t “bad” enough? The sexual aspect was meant as a particular additional humiliation?
OK, that’s a little unfair. Yeah, Shatner has a hammy approach to his roles, but he was a better actor that he’s given credit for when he wanted to be. And the supporting cast of Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan, and in the pilot, Jeffrey Hunter, John Hoyt, an Susan Oliver–those were some names with some serious acting chops.
Hard to believe she was 85. Nice to see her in ST:TMP, VGR and some other ST movies (Janice Rand | Memory Alpha | Fandom) back in the day. May she rest in peace.
Yeoman Rand fans might want to check out the recent graphic-novel version of Harlan Ellison’s original “City on the Edge of Forever” screenplay; Rand appears in it (unlike in the episode) and even has a fight scene.
I’ve sometimes wondered if Shatner’s hamminess was, to some extent, deliberate. It was a bunch of men and women, surrounded by light blue plywood, running back and forth while someone tilted the camera. It wouldn’t have taken much for the whole thing to look low-budget and silly. There wasn’t any room for doubt; if the actors hadn’t seemed utterly convinced that they were hundred of light years away with their lives on the line, it wouldn’t be the show that it is.
I’d suspect there’s something to that. And, yes, I realize that this thread isn’t the place to go into it in detail. But, as a general remark: some fandoms can be extreme in their “defense” of the Perfection of the Creator(s), and if some person runs afoul of the Creator(s) in some way–such as having their employment terminated by the Creator(s)–then that person may find themselves to be the object of ugly claims and rumors.
And these rumors gain strength because the Perfection of the Creator means that the Creator can never be unfair…so the terminated person must have been 100% at fault for the termination (through pervasive and all-encompassing addictions, say, that kept the person from performing their job duties).
That sort of “defense” has been known to be mounted. I can think of examples in Harry Potter fandom and in Tolkien fandom: in both cases the authors are considered to be sacred figures of sorts, and any criticism of them is, almost literally, seen as sacrilege by some. (Go to any Potter-fandom site and type “Harold Bloom” into their search box, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Yale professor Bloom slammed the Potter books in a Wall Street Journal piece, and has never been forgiven.)
I’m looking at two relatively recent Trek histories, Inside Star Trek, by Robert Justman and Herb Solow, and These Are the Voyages by Marc Cushman.
Both books date Grace Lee Whitney’s firing at late August/early September 1966, before the first episode had even aired. Both point out that she had been contracted for just seven episodes, which had already been shot. The show was already having serious financial and production problems.
Cushman suggests that casting director Joe D’Agosta initially suggested making DeForest Kelley a full-time member of the cast and eliminating Whitney’s role to help pay for it. Justman/Solow don’t go into details, but say that the powers that be “agreed there was no artistic or financial justification” to keep Yeoman Rand around. Both sources say Roddenberry didn’t put up a fight, and didn’t bother to tell her personally.
Justman/Solow talk about her battle with alcohol and diet pills. Cushman talks about the incident with someone Whitney only refers to as a “studio executive.”
Looking at her IMDB listing, she continued to work fairly regularly through the rest of the 1960’s, including at least one more Paramount show (Mannix) so her alcohol and drug problems must have been fairly well under control during that time.
Rand did brew their coffee (of course the Captain’s yeogirl brewed their coffee, it was 1966… ) using her hand phaser once when the galley was offline.
I suspect he was more interested at the time in finding a way to shoehorn Majel Barrett into the series, since she (reportedly) had been pressuring him to do so as his mistress (and future wife). Nurse Chapel was the result.
Well, that is a sort of time-honored tradtion, giving some screen time to the spouse/SO/mainsqueeze of the producer/director. Don Fedderson found a way to put his then-wife Tido as an extra in almost every episode of “The Millionaire”.
I was quite into TOS Trek a few years back, and had never heard about Whitney’s addiction problems, or that she’d been sexual assaulted by someone in the crew. I think once I learned what an asshole Shatner was back in the day, I steadfastly avoided most behind the scenes information, so this has been quite an eye opening thread.
At any rate, very sad, but as a fellow recoverer, it is heartening to hear of a reformed alcoholic living to the age of 85. RIP.
Well, yeah, but as** Earl Snake-Hips Tucker** notes, that wasn’t exactly rare. The bigger problem (to Roddenberry) was that NBC really, really wanted to keep Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in the cast, while others involved with the show were pushing to give DeForest Kelley and James Doohan more substantial roles. Someone had to go, and Yeoman Rand had the least going for her.
Bruce Hyde had a substantial part in a couple of those early episodes. They didn’t bring him back, either, but a cult didn’t grow up around him.
Riley was the only one ever to refer to the ship’s bowling alley on air. IIRC, they were serving ice cream that night, not beer.
Interesting that Riley (who was featured only in the first half of the first season) was eventually followed by Chekov, who was similar except in that he was a proud Russian instead of a proud Irishman. I guess Riley wasn’t appealing enough to the teenaged audience (or to the Sovs, either).
Riley was in only two episodes, and was never really a “regular.” In fact, I’ve always heard that the character in “Conscience of the King” (his second episode) wasn’t originally written to be Kevin Riley, but had another name. They just happened to hire Bruce Hyde again, and at some point it occurred to somebody that since he had been in one episode already, they might as well just go ahead and make him the same character.
His case is not in any way comparable to Yeoman Rand, who was (at least originally) intended to be a recurring character. She, or someone like her, was extensively mentioned in the various memos and lists of characters that were circulating through the Desilu offices as Star Trek was being planned, as documented in David Gerrold’s The Making of Star Trek. Note that there is an analogous character in “The Cage,” the original pilot. The “sexy yeoman,” a constant temptation to the Captain but always off-limits, was part of the original plan for the show. At some point, for whatever reason, they decided that role wasn’t vital, and let her go.
I feel kind of disconcerted, and a little sad, that a thread that should have been a memorial to Grace Lee Whitney has become one more thread of Star Trek trivia. I suppose I’m as much to blame for that as anybody, but there you are.
It’s remarkable that these performers are remembered at all for playing such minor roles fifty years ago. How could discussing an enduring cultural artifact on which they made such an indelible impression be anything short of a tribute to them?
…That’s it! (On how deep a level we are influenced by fiction, we cannot say; we cannot know.)