Majel Barrett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Majel Barrett-Roddenberry | |
 |
|
| Birth name | Majel Lee Hudec |
| Born | February 23, 1932 (age 75) Columbus, Ohio, United States |
| Other name(s) | M. Leigh Hudec |
| Spouse(s) | Gene Roddenberry (1969-1991) |
| Official site | www.roddenberry.com |
| Notable roles | Christine Chapel in Star Trek Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation |
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (b. Majel Lee Hudec on February 23, 1932 in Columbus, Ohio) is an American actress, and producer. She is also the widow of television director/producer/writer and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
As a result of her marriage to Gene Roddenberry and the fact that she has been in every Star Trek series, she is sometimes referred to as “the First Lady of Star Trek.” She and Gene Roddenberry were married in Japan on August 6, 1969, after the cancellation of the original Star Trek series.
Contents |
[edit] Career
Barrett attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. She came to Hollywood in the 1950s. She worked at the Desilu Studios on several TV shows, including Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Lucy Show, and The Lieutenant. She received training in comedy from Lucille Ball. In 1960 she played Gwen Rutherford on Leave it to Beaver. She was also briefly seen in the film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter at the beginning in an ad parody.
[edit] Star Trek
Majel Barrett has been in every incarnation of the popular science fiction Star Trek, franchise since the very beginning. She first appeared in Star Trek's initial pilot, "The Cage," as the USS Enterprise's unnamed First Officer, "Number One". Barrett is said to have been cast as Number One in part because of her romantic involvement with Roddenberry. The mere idea of having an otherwise unknown woman, in a leading role, with a position authority, because she was his girlfriend, is said to have infuriated NBC network executives who insisted that Roddenberry give the role to a man.[1] Her role in the second pilot, and subsequent episodes of Star Trek was that of Nurse Christine Chapel. In an early scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, viewers are informed that she has now become Doctor Chapel, a role which she reprises in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Barrett provided several voices for Star Trek: The Animated Series, including those of Nurse Chapel and the communications officer M'ress, the felinoid, Caitian. Years later, she would return in Star Trek: The Next Generation, cast as the outrageously self-deterministic, iconoclast Betazoid Ambassador Lwaxana Troi. Barrett, as Troi, would also later appear in several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
She also provided the regular voice of starship onboard computers for Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and most of the Star Trek movies. She reprised her role as a shipboard computer voice in the two episodes of the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise that involved an earlier time period—a century before the time of Kirk and Spock aboard the Enterprise NCC-1701. She has also lent her voice to various computer games and software related to the franchise.
As a result of her providing the computer voice in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", Barrett became the first and only actor to participate in all five Star Trek TV series, as well as in both the TOS and TNG film series.
[edit] After Star Trek
After Roddenberry's death, Barrett took material from his archives to bring two of his ideas into production. She was Executive Producer of Earth: Final Conflict, and later Andromeda.
Barrett also played the character Dr. Julianne Belman in Earth: Final Conflict. She made a guest appearance in a Babylon 5 episode "Point of No Return", as Lady Morella, the psychic widow of the Centauri emperor; her role foreshadowed major plot elements in the series. Parodying her voice work as the computer for the Star Trek series, Barrett performed as a guest voice on Family Guy as the voice of Stewie Griffin's ship.
Union Pacific railroad engineers have enlisted the voice talents of Barrett their track-side defect detector devices, in various locations Union Pacific railroad deployed west of the Mississippi River, in the United States. Once a defect is identified, the system responds with the voice of Barrett with information to the train's head-end crew.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Solow, Herbert F.; Justman, Robert H. (1996). Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0671896288.
- ^ Live Railroad Radio Communications. RailroadRadio.net. Retrieved on February 12, 2007.Select UP San Francisco Bay Area for real-time communications feed.
[edit] External links
- Majel Barrett at the Internet Movie Database
- Majel Barrett at the Notable Names Database
- Majel Barrett article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
