She's dead, Jim.

[phrodeau]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/68275232/star-trek-actress-grace-lee-whitney-dies

http://www.wixiban.com/images/ccg1e/agt/1EAGT024.jpg

Grace Lee Whitney, who played Captain Kirk's assistant on the original Star Trek series, has died. She was 85.

Whitney died of natural causes on Friday in her home in the Central California town of Coarsegold, about 80 kilometres north of Fresno, her son Jonathan Dweck said on Sunday.

Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand in the first eight episodes before being written out of the series. In her 1998 autobiography The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, she wrote that her acting career largely came to an end and she became an alcoholic.

She wrote that she struggled with her addiction for many years before getting treatment and regaining her career with the help of Leonard Nimoy, who starred as Spock in the series.

She returned for the movie franchise, reprising her role in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Dweck said his mother would have liked to be remembered more as a successful survivor of addiction than for her "Star Trek" fame. She dedicated the last 35 years of her life helping people with addiction problems, some of whom she met at Star Trek conventions, he said.

 

[lovecraft68]

Another one down from one of TV's most iconic shows.

She's a good story, one of the lucky ones who was able to get her act together and enjoy life and help others while doing so.

I agree that's far more of an achievement than being sixties nerd Eye candy.

 

[Recidiva]

Oh...damn.

Sorry Grace

Charlie will always miss you.

 

[Balladeer08]

Oh...damn.

Sorry Grace

Charlie will always miss you.

Nice epitaph. Thank you for thinking of it.

 

[phrodeau]

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Grace_Lee_Whitney

Intended to appear in far more episodes than she ultimately did, Whitney's Yeoman Rand was written out of several episodes, and ultimately dropped from the series after eight episodes. The exact reason for Whitney's dismissal is uncertain; her struggle with alcohol and use of diet pills are sometimes cited as causes, while creator Gene Roddenberry's biography suggests that her departure was simply a budget cutback. In her autobiography, The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, Whitney describes an incident in which she was sexually assaulted by an executive of the Star Trek production team, who is not identified by name, and she drew a link between this incident and her sacking a few days later, but afterwards states her role was going to be eliminated in any case. According to Inside Star Trek, Whitney slid deeper into alcohol addiction after being fired from the show.

 

[Recidiva]

Nice epitaph. Thank you for thinking of it.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

LLAP Yeoman Rand