Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (born Majel Leigh Hudec;[1] February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008)[1] was an American actress and producer. She is perhaps best known for her role as Nurse Chapel in original Star Trek series and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She was also the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.[1]
As a result of her marriage to Gene Roddenberry and her ongoing relationship with Star Trek – participating in some way in every series to date – she was 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 Star Trek: The Original Series.[1] They had one son together, Eugene Rod Roddenberry, Jr., born in 1974.
In various roles, Barrett participated in every incarnation of the popular science fictionStar Trekfranchise
produced during her lifetime, including live-action and animated
versions, television and cinema, and all of the time periods in which
the various series have been set.
She first appeared in Star Trek's initial pilot, "The Cage" (1964), as the USS Enterprise's unnamed first officer, "Number One".
Barrett was romantically involved with Roddenberry, whose marriage was
on the verge of failing at the time, and the idea of having an
otherwise unknown woman in a leading role because she was the
producer's girlfriend is said to have infuriated NBC network executives
who insisted that Roddenberry give the role to a man.[2]William Shatner corroborated this in Star Trek Memories, and added that female viewers at test screenings hated the character as well.[3]
Shatner noted that women viewers felt she was "pushy" and "annoying"
and also thought that "Number One shouldn't be trying so hard to fit in
with the men."[4] Barrett often joked that Roddenberry, given the choice between keeping Mr. Spock
(whom the network also hated) or the woman character, "kept the Vulcan
and married the woman, 'cause he didn't think Leonard [Nimoy] would
have it the other way around."[5]
Her role in subsequent episodes of Star Trek was altered to that of Nurse Christine Chapel,
a frequently recurring character, known for her unrequited affection
for the dispassionate Spock. Her first appearance as Chapel in film
dailies prompted NBC executive Jerry Stanley to yodel "Well, well--look
who's back!".[2] In an early scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, viewers are informed that she has now become Doctor Chapel, a role which she reprised briefly in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Barrett provided several voices for Star Trek: The Animated Series, including those of Nurse Chapel and a communications officer named M'Ress, an ailuroid officer who served alongside Uhura. She would return years later in Star Trek: The Next Generation, cast as the outrageously self-deterministic, iconoclastic Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi, who appeared as a recurring character in the series. Her character often vexed the captain of the Enterprise, Jean Luc Picard, who spurned her amorous advances. Barrett later appeared as Ambassador Troi in several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where in stark contrast, she developed a strong relationship with Constable Odo.
Barrett is also one of six actors (the others being Jonathan Frakes,
Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, Avery Brooks and Michael Dorn) to lend her
voice to the CD-ROM Star Trek: Captain's Chair, reprising her role as the voice of the ships' computers.
On December 9, 2008, less than 10 days before her death, Roddenberry Productions announced that she would be providing the voice of the ship's computer once again, this time for the 2009 motion picture relaunch of Star Trek.[1][6]
Sean Rossall, a Roddenberry family spokesman, stated that she had
already completed the voiceover work, approximately December 4, 2008.[1] The film is dedicated to her as well as Gene.
Barrett and her husband, Gene Roddenberry, were honored in 2002 by the Space Foundation with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award[7] for their work creating awareness of and enthusiasm for space.
"My mother truly acknowledged and appreciated the fact that Star Trek
fans played a vital role in keeping the Roddenberry dream alive for the
past 42 years. It was her love for the fans, and their love in return,
that kept her going for so long after my father passed away."
Majel also appeared (credited as Majel Barrett) in Michael Crichton's 1973 sci-fi western, Westworld as a prostitute. [8]
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 (in which she also played the character Dr. Julianne Belman), and Andromeda.
In a gesture of goodwill between the creators of the Star Trek franchise and of Babylon 5 (whose fans often engaged in a rivalry),[9] she appeared in the Babylon 5 episode "Point of No Return", as Lady Morella, the psychic widow of the Centauri emperor, a role which 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's computer in the episode "Emission Impossible".
The Union Pacific Railroad used her voice talent for their track-side defect detector devices, used in various locations west of the Mississippi River.
When a defect is identified, the system responds with her recorded
voice announcing information to the train crew over the radio.[10]
Some of Barrett's final voice over work was still in
post-production, to be released in 2009 after her death, as mentioned
in the credits of the 2009 movie (released on DVD) Star Trek, again as the computer's voice. An animated production called "Hamlet A.D.D." credited her as Majel Barrett Roddenberry, playing the voice over role of Queen Robot.[11]
Barrett-Roddenberry died on December 18, 2008, at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California as a result of complications from Leukemia. She was 76 years of age.[1]
After Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, his wife had commissioned Celestis Inc., a company that specializes in "memorial spaceflights", to launch a part of his remains into space
in 1997. On January 26, 2009, Celestis said that it would ship the
remains of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry into space
the following year. The couple's cremated remains would be sealed into
specially made capsules designed to withstand space travel. A
rocket-launched spacecraft would carry the capsules, along with
digitized tributes from fans. The Roddenberrys' remains, and the
spacecraft, would then travel ever deeper into space and would never
return to Earth.[13]
^ abSolow, Herbert F.; Justman, Robert H. (1996). Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN0671896288.
^Star Trek Memories, dictated by William Shatner and transcribed by Chris Kreski, which HarperCollins published, with the ISBN 0-06-017734-9, in 1993, made this claim in the chapter on "The Cage."
^ William Shatner, Star Trek Memories, Harper Collins, 1993. p.65
