Grace Lee Whitney

Born: 1930-04-01

Grace Lee Whitney (April 1, 1930 - May 1, 2015) was an American actress and singer, best known for her role as Janice Rand on the original Star Trek television series and subsequent Star Trek films. Born Mary Ann Chase, she was adopted by the Whitney family, who changed her name to Grace Elaine. She started her entertainment career as a "girl singer" on Detroit's WJR radio at the age of fourteen. After she left home, she began to call herself Lee Whitney, eventually becoming known as Grace Lee Whitney. In her late teens, she moved to Chicago where she opened in nightclubs for Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich, and toured with the Spike Jones and Fred Waring Bands. Whitney debuted on Broadway in Top Banana, playing Miss Holland. Following the successful run of the show, she joined the cast in Hollywood, where she recreated the role in the 1954 movie of the same name. In Los Angeles, Whitney auditioned for and was cast in the starring role of Lucy Brown in the national tour of The Threepenny Opera. Whitney made more than a hundred television appearances following her television dramatic debut in Cowboy G-Men in 1953; The Real McCoys, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Bat Masterson, The Rifleman, 77 Sunset Strip, Bewitched, Batman, and The Untouchables. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Whitney was also on live television shows including You Bet Your Life, The Red Skelton Show, The Jimmy Durante Show and The Ernie Kovacs Show. Whitney was cast as a member of the all-female band in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot. She shared several scenes with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe, including the famed "upper berth" sequence. She had uncredited roles in House of Wax, Top Banana, The Naked and the Dead, and Pocketful of Miracles. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry cast Whitney in the role of Yeoman Janice Rand, the personal assistant to Captain James T. Kirk, in 1966. Whitney appeared in eight of the first fifteen episodes, after which she was released from contract. She had claimed that, while still under contract, she was sexually assaulted by an executive associated with the series. Later, in a public interview, she stated that Leonard Nimoy had been her main source of support during that time. She went into more details about the assault in her book The Longest Trek, but refused to name the executive, saying in the book, "This is my story, not his." Whitney returned to the Star Trek franchise in the 1970s after DeForest Kelley saw Whitney on the unemployment line and told her that fans had been asking for her at fan conventions. Whitney reprised her role as Janice Rand, who had received a promotion to chief petty officer in Star Trek: The Motion Picture). She also appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, with another promotion, as Lieutenant Commander Janice Rand. Five years later, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise, she returned in the 1996 Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", along with George Takei. She also reprised her role in two internet Star Trek episodes. In the 1970s, she appeared in The Bold Ones, Cannon, and Hart to Hart. In 1998, she appeared in an episode of Diagnosis: Murder, which reunited her with her Star Trek colleagues George Takei, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett.


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as CPO Janice Rand
Released: 1979-12-07

When a destructive space entity is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral Kirk resumes command of...

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See!

Some Like It Hot

as Rosella (uncredited)
Released: 1959-03-19

Two musicians witness a mob hit and struggle to find a way out of the city before they are found...

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as Commander Rand
Released: 1986-11-26

It's the 23rd century, and a mysterious alien power is threatening Earth by evaporating the...

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as Excelsior Communications Officer (Janice Rand)
Released: 1991-12-06

After years of war, the Federation and the Klingon empire find themselves on the brink of a...

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Irma la Douce

as Kiki
Released: 1963-06-05

When a naive policeman falls in love with a prostitute, he doesn’t want her seeing other men and...

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as Commander Janice Rand (Woman in Cafeteria)
Released: 1984-06-01

Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned Enterprise to...

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Pocketful of Miracles

as Queenie's Broad (uncredited)
Released: 1961-12-18

A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society...

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To the Journey - Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager

as self (archival)
Released:

The documentary explores the legacy of Star Trek: Voyager (1995).

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Top Banana

as Miss Holland (uncredited)
Released: 1954-02-22

Jerry Biffle is the star of the Blendo Soap Program. He has been invited to participate in an...

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Ironside

as Stripper (uncredited)
Released: 1967-03-28

Citizens of San Francisco are stunned by the news that Robert Ironside, the city's hard-nosed,...

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The Man from Galveston

as Texas Rose
Released: 1963-12-18

Circuit-riding Texas lawyer Timothy Higgins defends a former girlfriend against a murder charge...

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A Public Affair

as Tracey Phillips
Released: 1962-03-03

Expository internal affairs drama which brings to light the often unprincipled tactics used in...

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The Kid with the 200 I.Q.

as uncredited
Released: 1983-02-06

A 13-year-old genius goes to college and tries to cope not only with campus social life, but...

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The Texan Meets Calamity Jane

as Cecelia Mullen
Released: 1950-11-15

A western in which Calamity Jane's rightful ownership of a gambling hall is challenged. She...

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Way Down Cellar

as Velma
Released: 1968-01-07

Three friends find a secret tunnel under the ruins of a church that leads them to the basement...

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Star Trek: Voyager

as Commander Janice Rand
First aired: 1995-01-16

Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is 75 years away at maximum warp...

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Hart to Hart

as uncredited
First aired: 1979-09-22

Wealthy couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a self-made millionaire and his journalist wife,...

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Star Trek

as Yeoman Janice Rand
First aired: 1966-09-08

Space. The Final Frontier. The U.S.S. Enterprise embarks on a five year mission to explore the...

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Death Valley Days

as Verna
First aired: 1952-10-01

Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of...

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The Name of the Game

as Suzette
First aired: 1968-09-20

The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and...

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The Big Valley

as Maggie
First aired: 1965-09-15

The Big Valley is an American western television series which ran on ABC from September 15,...

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The Outer Limits

as Carla Duveen
First aired: 1963-09-16

The Outer Limits is an anthology tv series of self-contained sci-fi-horror stories, sometimes...

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Run for Your Life

as Billie
First aired: 1965-09-13

Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only...

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Run for Your Life

as Millie
First aired: 1965-09-13

Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only...

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Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

as Ellen
First aired: 1956-10-05

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American...

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The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

as Saloon Girl (as Ruth Whitney)
First aired: 1955-09-06

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a television western series loosely based on the life of...

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77 Sunset Strip

as uncredited
First aired: 1958-10-10

Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this...

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77 Sunset Strip

as Natasha
First aired: 1958-10-10

Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this...

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Batman

as Neila
First aired: 1966-01-12

Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually...

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Diagnosis: Murder

as Encounter Group Abductee
First aired: 1993-10-29

Dr. Mark Sloan is a good-natured, offbeat physician who is called upon to solve murders.

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Arrest and Trial

as uncredited
First aired: 1963-09-15

Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American crime/legal drama series that ran during the 1963-1964...

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Arrest and Trial

as Sally Burns
First aired: 1963-09-15

Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American crime/legal drama series that ran during the 1963-1964...

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The Rifleman

as uncredited
First aired: 1958-09-30

The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas...

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Mannix

as uncredited
First aired: 1967-09-16

Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS....

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The Eleventh Hour

as Dawn
First aired: 1962-10-03

The Eleventh Hour is an American medical drama about psychiatry starring Wendell Corey, Jack...

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Bat Masterson

as Louise Talbot
First aired: 1958-10-08

Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of...

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Cannon

as uncredited
First aired: 1971-09-14

Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26,...

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The Untouchables

as Fran
First aired: 1959-10-15

Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptible agents battle organized crime in...

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The Walter Winchell File

as uncredited
First aired: 1957-10-02

The Walter Winchell File is the title of a television crime drama series that initially aired...

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The Virginian

as Nina
First aired: 1962-09-19

The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth,...

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The Virginian

as Heather
First aired: 1962-09-19

The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth,...

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The Detectives

as uncredited
First aired: 1959-10-16

The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons,...

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The Detectives

as Susie
First aired: 1959-10-16

The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons,...

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Surfside 6

as uncredited
First aired: 1960-10-06

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a...

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The Outsider

as uncredited
First aired: 1968-09-18

The Outsider was the story of David Ross, a go-it-alone private investigator who's always where...

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Gunsmoke

as Pearl
First aired: 1955-09-10

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman...

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Cimarron Strip

as uncredited
First aired: 1967-09-07

Cimarron Strip is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from September 1967 to...

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Temple Houston

as Tangerine O'Shea
First aired: 1963-09-19

Temple Houston is a 1963–64 NBC television series which has been called "the first attempt . . ....

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Bring Back...

as Self
First aired: 2005-05-10

Bring Back... is a British television series comprising one-off shows where Justin Lee Collins...

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Rango

as uncredited
First aired: 1967-01-13

Rango is an American Western situation comedy starring comedian Tim Conway which was broadcast...

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General Electric Theater

as Audrey Henderson
First aired: 1953-02-01

General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was...

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