Starlog-No. 105

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Excerpts from Starlog (magazine) magazine #105. April 1986

The Grace & Wit of Grace Lee Whitney[edit | edit source]

In the glory days ofStar Trek, Grace Lee Whitney served as a sort of “space geisha,” adventuring alongside McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Kirk (William Shatner).
Retired for the Enterprise, Grace Lee Whitney today.

By Daniel Dickholtz

Grace Lee Whitney swam the ocean bottom as the original Chicken of the Sea mermaid, played in the all-girl band behind Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, teamed with King Tut to fight Batman and explored both The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone. She's best known, though, as the U.S.S. Enterprise’s favorite yeoman, Janice Rand.

And what exactly does a yeoman do anyway? “Her duties were that of a right-hand woman, a girl Friday,“ says Whitney. ”In other words, she took care of Kirk's personal needs, like a valet would do. I had a pet name I used to call myself: a ‘space geisha.’”

The duties,. though, never extended to James T. Kirk's well-known boudoir. "Actually, there was no sexuality between Rand and Kirk," Whitney comments. "The relationship was never consummated. He was married to the ship. Supposedly, she was in love with him, and supposedly he was very fond of her, but I don't think they ever really got together."

The actress first came aboard when Gene Roddenberry was preparing Police Story, a pilot featuring both Whitney and DeForest Kelley. When Police Story didn't sell, and Star Trek did, the two stars traded badges and guns for spaceships and phasers. Whitney a!so gained a great blonde wig that "they nailed to my head every morning.

“Working on the series was quite an experience. There was a wonderful charisma between all of us and that magic happened on film, which is why !think Star Trek is so popular” Whitney says. “I learned a lot from Leonard Nimoy and Bill Shatner. Bill is a very fine actor. It was great.”

And, like everyone, she has her favorite episodes.

"Well, I have three," she admits. "I like ‘The Enemy Within’ because seeing Captain Kirk act in that fashion challenged me as an actress. 'Charlie X' brought out another side of me, the woman looking at a younger man. That was also wonderful because I felt an allegiance to Captain Kirk.

"Then, there's 'Miri' because my children were in the show. There's a big grate that's up and my two little kids came out and they stole the communicators. So, I'm torn among those three."

It was, however, an experience that wouldn't be a long one. After only seven episodes, Whitney waS asked to disembark the starship Enterprise.

"It was a studio decision," she reveals. "They wrote the part out.

"They only wanted one blonde aboard, and since the other blonde was engaged to marry the producer, they thought it best to get rid of me," Whitney laughs.

“No, I really don't think that's true. I always kid about that. I think they wanted Kirk, as a character, to be more free. They didn't want to give the fans the idea he was in love with Janice Rand. That would limit him. They wanted him to go out and fool around. So, I was axed.”

Consequently, several first season scripts had to be rewritten for other women. The part of Dr. Noel in "Dagger of the Mind," for example, was originally Yeoman Rand's. "The hardest thing was to watch somebody else say my lines," Whitney recalls.

Whitney may have gone, but she wasn't to be forgotten. When Paramount announced the filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Roddenberry insisted on reuniting the original cast, bringing Janice Rand back as the new transporter chief.

"I had done about 80 TV shows and seven movies," she remarks. "But when I got back with Star Trek, it was like coming back home to my family. It was wonderful."

There was no part for her, however, in either The Wrath of Khan or the script for The Search for Spock. Director Leonard Nimoy, though, corrected that oversight by giving Whitney a cameo in which she watches the return of the damaged Enterprise at the beginning of Star Trek III.

"Leonard was way up on a boom directing me and I was looking," she explains. "And of course, there was no Enterprise there. It was simply a blank wall. I had to do all this imagining in my head.

“So, Leonard talked me through it. He said, ‘OK. You're seeing the ship. It's coming in. There it is. It's the Enterprise.’ And I would look a certain way. And he would say, ‘But it's hurt.’ And then I would look at it sadly. Then, he would say, ‘Look at it now and see the things that are wrong with it. And Captain Kirk is in trouble. And Mr. Spock is dead.’ He was talking me through all of these things as I was watching it. He was putting into my mind what he wanted me to show in my eyes and on my face.”

Nimoy has announced that he hopes to use Whitney again in Star Trek IV, preferably in a larger role. “Leonard is my best supporter,” she notes. “He really is. So, I'm pretty confident.” With her current work with chemically-dependent people opening her possible Trek IV role might be.

“I would like to think that Rand has moved into counseling,“ Whitney says. “I would like to get her into a more intimate relationship with everyone aboard, in a position where everyone could come and share their problems with her. One of the fans suggested that, by the way.”

Another fan thought that Rand should become a chaplain. “Since I am on a spiritual path in my own life, that might be interesting,” she allows. “It certainly would be a switch-from space geisha to chaplain.”

At the moment, Whitney is hardly idle. Having been out of the business for the past flve years while she worked with an agent who represented both John Travolta and the late Jon-Erik Hexum, she is now throwing herself back into acting.

"I'm into a theater group right now. I'm with Theater East, and I've been doing plays.

"And," she adds with a smile, "I've been offered a very nice role as the very hip mother of three teenage daughters who are in the world and having their troubles. It's very today, a very contemporary idea. The mother is a survivor and still beautiful and carrying on, and I think it's just a wonderful role for me.

So, I'm hoping that will be good. NBC is quite interested in it, and it would be lovely to have a series. I'm looking forward to it."

Also, feeling that the “fans of 'Star Trek' have made it what it is,” Whitney does her best to stay on the convention circuit and keep in touch with fans, even though she might not be what they expected.

Whitney says, she “learned a lot from working with Leonard Nimoy and Bill Shatner”

“I remember when I first started coming to conventions,” she says, “and people knew me as Janice Rand and watched me carry on with my smile and how happy I was. They were surprised it was the same person because as Rand, I was so serious because that was how I had to be on the series."

Usually, convention-attendees will find Whitney entertaining crowds, singing along to her tape of Star Trek-related tunes. More often than not, the songs are titled after episodes in which she appeared.

“I took the episodes and the scripts which I have at home, and I wrote lyrics based on them,” she explains. “Then, my husband put music to them, and that's how the songs came about.”

Grace Lee Whitney may be a busy, active woman, but her thoughts often turn back to her beloved Star Trek character.

"Do you know what made Janice Rand a hit?" she asks. "She was innocent and vulnerable, and yet, she had a sort of strength about her. She was a dual personality. When she was with Captain Kirk, this very feminine vulnerability, this soft side of her came through. And that's what the fans love. And then, of course, when she had to come up against him, her strength carne through. So, it was those two qualities, her vulnerability and sweetness, coupled with the strength, that came across on film. That's what I think Janice Rand is all about."