Rand/Grace Lee Whitney in TMP

[Whofan]

Is it just me or does she look kind of unhealthy in the movie? Of course she aged, but she looks very different and younger in the Search for Spock, The Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country.


I've heard this was shortly after she quit her drug habit, so maybe she got healthier in the 80s?

 

[Nardpuncher]

I guess I can see what you mean. Maybe it was that late 70s make-up style. The kind that made Nimoy wear such dark eye shadow.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I guess I can see what you mean. Maybe it was that late 70s make-up style.

I have had several wonderful meetings with Grace Lee Whitney, both at conventions and 1:1 interview style. She told of her great excitement of being invited back for ST:TMP (and "Phase II" before that), and then her utter dismay when the Makeup Department sent her out for her first in-character photo shoots in front of director Robert Wise. He took one look at her "beauty makeup" that had been applied and said, "I don't want Kirk's geisha girl in this movie". Grace was sent back to have her makeup removed.

Majel and Nichelle were allowed to have some beauty makeup and Persis Khambatta's contract actually allowed her to send out all of her Ilia stills to a photo studio so they could be airbrushed, but Janice Rand's character in the movie was seen as "a mechanic", hence the overalls jumpsuit version of the uniform and no beauty makeup.

She was invited back for ST III - after principal photography had been completed - by Leonard Nimoy himself. Grace's scene was shot at ILM and her "look" in that movie was essentially her "look" in real life at the time. Just after ST II's release (again devastated that no one had asked her to play Rand in that one, even though Chapel and Rand are both in the ST II novelization), she visited our Australian convention - looking amazing in beauty makeup, a short skirt and white cowboy boots - and decided, at the banquet, to go teetotal. Her experience with Aussie fans had been so positive she decided to kick her old habits.

Here's a photo I took of Grace departing Sydney airport for home, after attending that Brisbane ST convention and seeing a local ST II premiere (1982) with Aussie fans:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/05/amazing-grace.html

She also looked just as stunning at DeForest Kelley's star ceremony on the Walk of Fame, just after ST VI, and she made a point of chatting to almost everyone in the crowd.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I guess I can see what you mean. Maybe it was that late 70s make-up style.

I have had several wonderful meetings with Grace Lee Whitney, both at conventions and 1:1 interview style. She told of her great excitement of being invited back for ST:TMP (and "Phase II" before that), and then her utter dismay when the Makeup Department sent her out for her first in-character photo shoots in front of director Robert Wise. He took one look at her "beauty makeup" that had been applied and said, "I don't want Kirk's geisha girl in this movie". Grace was sent back to have her makeup removed.

I've heard the reason for that was that Roddenberry enlisted her in a practical joke on Robert Wise that backfired. Did she confirm that part of the story?

 

[Captain Mike]

I guess I can see what you mean. Maybe it was that late 70s make-up style.

I have had several wonderful meetings with Grace Lee Whitney, both at conventions and 1:1 interview style. She told of her great excitement of being invited back for ST:TMP (and "Phase II" before that), and then her utter dismay when the Makeup Department sent her out for her first in-character photo shoots in front of director Robert Wise. He took one look at her "beauty makeup" that had been applied and said, "I don't want Kirk's geisha girl in this movie". Grace was sent back to have her makeup removed.

Majel and Nichelle were allowed to have some beauty makeup and Persis Khambatta's contract actually allowed her to send out all of her Ilia stills to a photo studio so they could be airbrushed, but Janice Rand's character in the movie was seen as "a mechanic", hence the overalls jumpsuit version of the uniform and no beauty makeup.

She was invited back for ST III - after principal photography had been completed - by Leonard Nimoy himself. Grace's scene was shot at ILM and her "look" in that movie was essentially her "look" in real life at the time. Just after ST II's release (again devastated that no one had asked her to play Rand in that one, even though Chapel and Rand are both in the ST II novelization), she visited our Australian convention - looking amazing in beauty makeup, a shirt skirt and white cowboy boots - and decided, at the banquet, to go teetotal. Her experience with Aussie fans had been so positive she decided to kick her old habits.

Here's a photo I took of Grace departing Sydney airport for home, after attending that Brisbane ST convention and seeing a local ST II premiere (1982) with Aussie fans:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/05/amazing-grace.html

She also looked just as stunning at DeForest Kelley's star ceremony on the Walk of Fame, just after ST VI, and she made a point of chatting to almost everyone in the crowd.

I agree Therin. One of the last (and unfortunately my first and only) in Erie, Pa., She and Marc Lenard were that days stars. I was so enticed on her speech about drugs and such, my mother thought all I was looking at was her body. Fortunately I could do both at the same time...

 

[Joel_Kirk]

she visited our Australian convention - looking amazing in beauty makeup, a shirt skirt and white cowboy boots - and decided, at the banquet, to go teetotal. Her experience with Aussie fans had been so positive she decided to kick her old habits.

Hmmm....

And no pics of this event...?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've heard the reason for that was that Roddenberry enlisted her in a practical joke on Robert Wise that backfired. Did she confirm that part of the story?

Well, she confirmed the joke, yes; it was an old favourite shtick of Gene's - and if you want to see Grace doing her famous, gum-chewin', Texas hussy role, check out her hilarious cameo in the Gary Coleman telemovie, "The Boy with the 200 IQ". But, certainly, she didn't link the practical joke with Wise ordering her to go without beauty makeup. Fans seem to have elaborated on that tale in later years.

Rather, Wise had watched episodes of TOS featuring Rand while familiarizing himself with ST, and he saw no need to have the character in TMP. (In "In Thy Image", Rand actually spends time at Uhura's station, as her relief communications officer.) Wise thought of the character in TOS as a geisha girl in a mini dress, painted up with false eyelashes, a ridiculous beehive hairstyle and glam eye shadow, to flirt with the captain and bring sex appeal to scenes that didn't need them. (As it turned out, Ilia was a rather different type of sexy in TMP.)

And no pics of this event...?

Actually, the only pic I have of her from the convention itself is one where she got picked up (literally) by an alien monster for a magazine's publicity photo shoot. I'll scan it for you; I think she was wearing leggings that day. It was the early 80s you know - and Grace was in her disco roller skating phase!

The pic in my old blog entry, referred to on my previous post, ends before the cowboy boots come into view. But it was taken a few days after her convention appearance. Oh, and "shirt" skirt, is a typo. It was a "short" skirt. Sorry to get your hopes up too high.

Edit: Okay, I located the convention pic and added it to the end of the blog entry:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/05/amazing-grace.html

 

[Pauln6]

Oooh me, me! Grace fan here! I actually think that she looks great in TMP - she is certainly one of the few original cast members that makes the jumpsuit look good. She was, what, late forties, and she'd been an alcoholic since the sixties, so taking those issues and the 'no make-up' issue into account, she looked fine. I vaguely recall that she got sober in 1980 so maybe her return to Trek helped inspire that along with her religion.

It was a bit disappointing that they didn't give a scene to call her own though. She was a CPO and therefore a senior non-com and she is up there at the stage with all the other principal characters in the Rec Deck scene. Still, most of the supporting cast were little more than window dressing I suppose but they just had the advantage of being on the bridge where most of the 'action' was taking place.

It would have made sense for her to be the replacement navigator but Marcy Lafferty was married to Shatner at the time so maybe that was a factor in placing a different CPO at the post? She was assigned to the engineering department so she could also have been seen helping Scotty later on.

I think her limited role in TMP might have been a factor in her being forgotten in TWoK, which in turn led to only cameo appearances in the later movies. A real shame.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I vaguely recall that she got sober in 1980 so maybe her return to Trek helped inspire that...

September 1982. I was there!

Marcy Lafferty was married to Shatner at the time so maybe that was a factor in placing a different CPO at the post?

Sure, plus she was the daughter of director Perry Lafferty.

Marcy in "Airplane II: The Sequel":
"Should I fake my orgasms?"

I think her limited role in TMP might have been a factor in her being forgotten in TWoK

The script simply didn't require her, but not Grace didn't get opening credits billing in TMP, so the contract she signed for TMP was what re-established her as "not in the big eight". (The "big eight" became the "big seven" because Majel Barrett refused to participate in ST II when GR was "demoted" to Creative Consultant.)

 

[Pauln6]

I vaguely recall that she got sober in 1980 so maybe her return to Trek helped inspire that...

September 1982. I was there!

Marcy Lafferty was married to Shatner at the time so maybe that was a factor in placing a different CPO at the post?

Sure, plus she was the daughter of director Perry Lafferty.

Marcy in "Airplane II: The Sequel":
"Should I fake my orgasms?"

I think her limited role in TMP might have been a factor in her being forgotten in TWoK

The script simply didn't require her, but not Grace didn't get opening credits billing in TMP, so the contract she signed for TMP was what re-established her as "not in the big eight". (The "big eight" became the "big seven" because Majel Barrett refused to participate in ST II when GR was "demoted" to Creative Consultant.)

So YOU inspired Grace to get sober? We owe you a great debt!

I think it was a bit much to hope that Grace would have been re-elevated to a central character after such a long absence but she does come near the top of the cast list just below the other eight in the closing credits.

I was at a comics fair in Bristol a few years ago and overheard a couple of young lads aged about 13 looking for Trek T-shirts. One of them soundly rejected an Uhura shirt and insisted that he was looking for a Yeoman Rand shirt. I was so proud I shed a little tear.

 

[Therin of Andor]

So YOU inspired Grace to get sober? We owe you a great debt!

Not me personally, but the Aussie attendees of ConQuest '82. Years after the fact, she revealed that weekend that she went teetotal in a "Starlog" interview, and she thanked the Aussies who inspired her to start afresh. As I said on my blog, I was at Grace's table for the Saturday evening banquet and she bought us all champagne, then sipped mineral water all night. We had no idea she was testing herself at the time!

The saddest Grace story was a few years later, when she did an interview for "Entertainment Tonight", and took the interviewer on a walk through the sleazier areas of Hollywood at night, showing the corners where she'd worked as a call girl in her darkest hours, years before.

When I visited with Grace in January 1984, she looked stunning! Grace just done her cameo for ST III and was sworn to secrecy, but let slip she'd been at the wrap party for the movie. That's how I realised she was going to be in the movie (and I ended up getting sworn to secrecy, too). At that time, Grace was mainly working as a secretary for a quite reputable Hollywood agency (they had a man-made creek running through the office!). Some of the actors there called her "Janice" with great affection. Ted Shackleford ("Dallas", "Knots Landing") was one of their biggest stars but she was very excited about a new talent they had: Jon-Erik Hexum, whom Grace described as a wonderful guy who was about to become a huge star in "Cover Up". (But in the October, of course, he was tragically killed in an accident on set.)

Did you know that one of her sons is a pilot and used to take Christopher Reeve for his annual flight tests. (Yes, he used to give Superman his license to fly!) And her other son, of course, played a Vulcan in ST:TMP.

 

[Pauln6]

Thanks for that Therin - cool stories! I really hope Janice makes it into the NuTrek sequel as a decent character in her own right. Grace is knocking on now (although admittedly only slightly older than Shatner) and I want Janice to come into her own while Grace can enjoy it.

It's a shame that Wise couldn't visualise any need for Rand in the movie. I think a proper scene between her and Kirk where she could relate to him on a level that Bones couldn't could have added a bit more humanity to the proceedings. She did work closely with Kirk for a fair period of time in TOS and they shared something of a bond. Not romance though - we get enough of that with Ilia. Oh well.

Btw - I've uploaded my cheesy TMP story to youtube now. I've no idea if I might get told off for breach of copyright so I'll keep my head down. Therin's cameo is in part two, which I haven't uploaded yet but I made sure Janice got a few lines in part one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT2xSvU6row

Edit: Damn I tried to edit the url so people could just cut and paste it but it has reisntated itself? Apologies for my IT illiteracy.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

The pic in my old blog entry, referred to on my previous post, ends before the cowboy boots come into view.

Aw..!

But it was taken a few days after her convention appearance. Oh, and "shirt" skirt, is a typo. It was a "short" skirt. Sorry to get your hopes up too high.

Short skirts with boots are okay...

Edit: Okay, I located the convention pic and added it to the end of the blog entry:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/05/amazing-grace.html

Thanks...

 

[Pauln6]

I put Part 2 of my cheesy TMP story up. I don't think Therin's cameo is hard to spot

Link ="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhDggIto_gk"] [/URL]

 

[Therin of Andor]

I put Part 2 of my cheesy TMP story up. I don't think Therin's cameo is hard to spot

Looks great, pauln6! I'm honoured. Thank you.

The "starring Marina Sirtis as..." role is a bit confusing. It seems like Deanna Troi has time travelled into the scene. Maybe you could have changed her hair colour, or used Admiral Kirk's TMP metal insignia badge superimposed over her "Next Generation" communicator badge?

Looking forward to the finale!

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah, because I need a sufficient stock of photos for the 'guest' characters I'm going to have to recycle other Trek 'actors' which could get confusing. I wanted to see how easy the process of preparing a story was as an experiment and it saves a fair bit of time if you can just cut and paste the images into the background wholesale. Cutting and pasting heads of the extras onto various Starfleet bodies is tricky enough and some images have incongruous shadows but overall I think it's bearable for the amount of time I invested.

TMP uniforms are being brought into Star Trek online soon so I might see how feasible it is to obtain a stock of starfleet bodies in action poses using screenshots from the character generator. I'm struggling to think of a way to finish the story without some sort of action shots.

The only thing I changed visually were Marina's eyes to be more in keeping with the telepaths in B5. I never really liked the concept of betazoids and I always felt that their telepathy was shoddily handled compared to Blakes 7, Babylon 5, or X-Men so that was something I wanted to tweak if I was going to feature betazoids at all.

Since it is effectively an alternate reality amalgam of Trek, B5, Alien, and whatever other franchise I can shamelessly plagarise for as long as they'll let me, I can hand wave inconsistencies away in the same way as NuTrek.

So... er Altreya's insignia is the official insignia of the Federation Diplomatic Core - easy!

If I need to give Therin a line in episode 3 and you have no objections I'll be sure to add you to the credits. I can't promise I won't kill him though - it's an alternate universe - anything can happen - mwaa ha haaa (cough).

 

[Therin of Andor]

If I need to give Therin a line in episode 3 and you have no objections I'll be sure to add you to the credits. I can't promise I won't kill him though - it's an alternate universe - anything can happen - mwaa ha haaa (cough).

Ha ha.

Therins Jr and Sr are here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=37203498@N00&q=therin&m=text

 

[Pauln6]

If I need to give Therin a line in episode 3 and you have no objections I'll be sure to add you to the credits. I can't promise I won't kill him though - it's an alternate universe - anything can happen - mwaa ha haaa (cough).

Ha ha.

Therins Jr and Sr are here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=37203498@N00&q=therin&m=text

Lol - I can always email you the original picture if you want a slightly clearer one. Actually, it looks a bit more dodgy when it's in focus - you can see more of the joins... My female andorian security guard also needs a bit more work.