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(Majel Lee Hudec 1932–2008). American actress and producer.
Provided
voices for: Star Trek (tv series) (1966-1969); Star Trek
(animated tv series) (1973-1975); Star Trek: The Motion Picture
(Robert WISE
1979); Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Nicolas MEYER 1982); Star
Trek III: The Search for Spock (Nimoy 1984); Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home (Leonard NIMOY
1986); Star Trek: The Next Generation (tv series) (1987-1994); Star
Trek V: The Final Frontier (William
SHATNER 1989); Star Trek VI:
The Undiscovered Country (Meyer 1992); Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (tv
series) (1993-1999); Star Trek: Generations (David Carson 1994); Star
Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual (video game) (1994);
Star Trek: Judgment Rites (video game) (1994); Star Trek: Voyager
(tv series) (1995-2001); Star Trek: The Next Generation: Interactive VCR
Board Game—A Klingon Challenge (video game) (1995); Star Trek: The
Next Generation—A Final Unity (video game) (1995); Star Trek: First
Contact (Jonathan FRAKES 1996); Star Trek: Borg (video game)
(1996); "Sins of the Father Chapter 1: Doctor Strange" (1996),
"Partners in Danger Chapter 8: The Return of the Green Goblin,"
"The Wedding" (1997), episodes of Spider-Man; Star Trek:
Generations (video game) (1997); Star Trek The Next Generation
Companion (video game) (1999); Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (video
game) (1999); "Emission Impossible" (2001), episode of The
Family Guy; Star Trek: Enterprise (tv series) (2001-2005); Star
Trek: Nemesis (Stuart Baird 2002)' "World Enough and Time" (2007),
episode of Star Trek: New Voyages; Star Trek (J. J. ABRAMS
2009).
Produced:
Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict (tv series) (1997-2002); Gene
Roddenberry's Andromeda (tv series) (2000-2005).
Her major roles as an actress—all of them under
the aegis of her husband—can be classified as the good, the bad, and the
ugly. She was reasonably good in the original Star Trek pilot, first
incorporated into the two-part episode "The Menagerie" (1966) and
later released on video as The Cage, playing Number One, the cold and
capable second-in-command of the starship Enterprise. When NBC insisted
upon the removal of this powerful woman character, the result was her bad
performances in the role that made her famous, Norse Christine Chapel; it is as
if Roddenberry resolved to satirically respond to NBC's sexism by creating the
most stereotypically "feminine" character possible, a simpering
blonde haplessly longing for the love of the tall, dark stranger, Mr. Spock. Today,
the scenes in which she is allowed to emote are uniformly unwatchable. The
first Star Trek film attempted to update the character for the feminist
era by restoring her natural hair color and elevating her to the status of a
doctor, but all this meant was that she went from being annoying to being
superfluous. Thus, thankfully, except for a cameo appearance in Star Trek
IV: The Voyage Home, Chapel was not seen in the subsequent films. Finally,
positively ugly were her guest appearances in Star Trek: The Next Generation
and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Deanna Troi's eccentric mother,
Lwaxana Troi—performances that were consistently tedious, overdone, and
relentlessly unamusing. Manifestly, only the ring on her finger kept her from
being thrown off the set.
Still, when you turned off the camera and
turned on the microphone, matters improved considerably. Drawing upon her Number
One persona, Majel Barrett Roddenberry performed quite effectively as the voice
of the Enterprise's computer, the role she reprised in all subsequent Star
Trek series and most of the films. She also did many other voices for
various incarnations of Star Trek, memorably including the catlike Lt.
M'Ress in the animated series, and she also reprised her role as the ship's
computer on an episode of The Family Guy.
Her acting outside of the Star Trek
universe was generally unmemorable, including appearances in every single one
of her husband's 1970s unsuccessful pilots and a guest appearance on the rival
program Babylon 5, perhaps a muted expression of displeasure over
the way that Gene Roddenberry had gradually been deprived of all control over
his own Star Trek franchise. But after her husband's death in 1992, she
devoted little time to brooding, instead launching a new career as a television
producer. First, she dusted off one of her husband's old ideas about an alien
race coming to Earth and launched the series Earth: Final Conflict, also
casting herself in a recurring role during its first two seasons; although it
must have attracted respectable ratings, nobody really seemed to be paying any
attention to it. Then, displaying greater creativity, she revisited the
scenario of Roddenberry's proposed series Genesis II, which involved a
cryogenically preserved man who awakens in a future world devastated by a
global nuclear war. Giving the idea the tiniest of tweaks, she then unveiled Gene
Roddenberry's Andromeda, which involved a cryogenically preserved man who
awakens in a future world with a spaceship, which he promptly boards in order
to begin exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new
civilizations, and boldly going where no man has gone before. While better and
more popular than Earth: Final Conflict, and blessed with a strong lead
performer in Kevin SORBO, Andromeda also managed to last only five
seasons—but perhaps this was only a matter of cosmic karma, since Gene
Roddenberry had after all declared in the 1960s that five years was the optimum
length for a science fiction television series.
Following the demise of Andromeda,
Majel Barrett Roddenberry settled into retirement, although she could still be
lured to a microphone to provide the clear, crisp voice of a starship computer,
and she will be heard in her most memorable role one more time in the
forthcoming Star Trek film, her lines recorded before her death in late
2008. Because of the influence of her innumerable performances as a computer,
and in light of research showing that female voices tend to attract more
attention, it seems probable that the talking computers of the future will in
fact sound much like Majel Barrett Roddenberry. Paradoxically, then, one of Star
Trek's weakest performers may end up having the greatest impact on our
culture.
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