RIP Grace Lee Whitney
- Thread starter Ssosmcin
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In the interest of full disclosure, she seems pretty surprised...her reaction is basically, "Who, me?"
On Whitney's appearance in TMP...I recall reading on here recently that Wise wouldn't let her wear make-up because he didn't want "Kirk's geisha" in the film.
I agree. But a true story from Grace's own lips (Brisbane, Australia, convention in 1982): On her first day of filming on TMP, she appeared on set in full "Hollywood glam" makeup and Robert Wise angrily told her to "go and wash it all off". He'd been watching TOS episodes and didn't want "Kirk's geisha girl" on the ship.
Grace was very disappointed to notice that Nichelle and Majel were permitted glam makeup, and Persis even had permission for airbrushing of promotional stills in her contract.
A friend was at the premiere at the Smithsonian and she saw Grace in tears after the movie, although she was back to her chirpy self the next day at the airport in Washington, and was very positive about the movie overall.
Just noticed your post. Yep. Wise's comment really distressed her at the time.
Robert Wise said that to her? I have the utmost respect for his career and his talents as a director, but that's disgusting. A product of his generation and its more prevalent, sexist attitudes? Maybe. But pretty insulting and he should have kept his rude remark to himself.
The world may someday run out of oil, precious metals, or clean water, but it will never run out of assholes.
It's a shame we can't use them as a source of renewable, clean energy. Mankind would be in great shape for the next 1,000 years.
I really enjoyed watching her act from the original series, to her small parts in the movies, to a great role on Star Trek Voyager and much more. Grace Lee is a much a part of Star Trek as the Enterprise. I really enjoyed watching her grow up and age with her acting. You will be very much missed, Rest in Peace.
Not while I'm alive, anyway!
Although, I would never do anything as douchey as Wise.
They did get off onto the wrong foot a few days/weeks earlier. Ever the practical joker, Gene Roddenberry had asked Grace to come to the Paramount lot and do her infamous gum-chewin' blonde bimbo shtick (see "The Kid With the 200 IQ" telemovie) and pretend to be Mr Wise's hopeless new secretary!
Mr Wise was unamused.
Yep. She had been signed to a 13-week contract, but the writers had been unable to feature her in every episode. She used to say how her two least favourite episodes were "Dagger of the Mind" (in which a meaty part for Rand had been given to Helen Noel in a rewrite) and "The Galileo Seven" (the 14th episode, in which Rand was suddenly... Yeoman Mears).
Uhura was a "day-player". Much cheaper!
I don't think it's that they were "unable" to, they chose not to, for whatever reason. Ultimately, the part was dropped in part due to the high cost to how little they ended up using her. Why she was never brought back as an occasional day player remains the unresolved mystery.
Wise was a legend from an earlier generation and probably didn't find a lot of things on-set and behind the scenes very amusing. It doesn't excuse his awful behavior to Grace but some Hollywood directors who rose to stardom during Hollywood's Golden Age were notoriously stubborn and difficult to get along with.
Majel Barrett appeared as a guest star in 2 episodes of season one. I would have been happy to seen Rand in one or two episodes of seasons two and three in a similar way. She almost made it into the Trouble with Tribbles but that was nixed at an early stage. A real shame.
But the disrespect for her character doesn't end there. She is rarely featured in anything more than a cameo in any of the novels or comics. Even John Byrne, in his entertaining photo-novels, despite having a lot of images to work with, featured Rand only in one back up story and only to effectively write her off the ship wtf? That's more annoying than writing Chapel off of NuTrek in a throw-away line.
Her appearance in the comic version of CotEoF remains her best to date IMO.
We can hope that now Majel and Grace are both gone and the 50th anniversary approaches that they will put some effort to re-introduce both characters as an homage in the third movie but there are a lot of other characters and two women is plenty for Star Trek (that's one more than Star Wars; what am I complaining about) so anything other than brief cameos seems unlikely. I really hope that they do put that bit of extra effort in, even if Rand just gets to cast a withering stare at Carol like she did with Lenore in her final TOS appearance, I would appreciate the effort as much as her appearance in STIII.
I find a lot of the stories about Roddenberrys pranks and jokes- I would find the guy kinda immature, annoying and a little pervy to work with. I appreciate that he created Star Trek, but as a person...