Majel Barrett

Majel Barrett
Majel Barrett at Gen Con in Indianapolis, Indiana in August 2006
Born Majel Leigh Hudec
(1932-02-23)February 23, 1932
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Died December 18, 2008(2008-12-18) (aged 76)
Bel Air, California, U.S.
Resting place Los Angeles, California on January 4, 2009
Residence Bel Air, Los Angeles, California
Other names M. Leigh Hudec
Education Shaker Heights High School
Alma mater University of Miami
Occupation Actress, producer, voice actress
Years active 1957–2008
Notable credit(s) Christine Chapel, Lwaxana Troi, and voice of ship's computer in the Star Trek franchise
Home town Hollywood, California
Spouse(s)
Gene Roddenberry
(m. 1969; d. 1991)
Children Rod Roddenberry
Website www.roddenberry.com
Signature

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (/ˈmeɪdʒəl/; born Majel Leigh Hudec;[1] February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008) was an American actress and producer. She was best known for her roles as Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series and Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as well as for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She became the second wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

As the wife of Roddenberry and given her ongoing relationship with Star Trek—participating in some way in every series during her lifetime—she was sometimes[1] referred to as "the First Lady of Star Trek". She married Roddenberry in Japan on August 6, 1969, after the cancellation of the original Star Trek series. They had one son together, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, Jr., born in 1974. The voice of AT&T in Back to the Future II

Biography

Barrett began taking acting classes as a child. She attended Shaker Heights High School, graduating in 1950[2] before going on to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, then had some stage roles and came to Hollywood. Her father, William Hudec, was a Cleveland police officer. He was killed in the line of duty on August 30, 1955 while Barrett was touring with an off-Broadway road company.[3] She was briefly seen in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) in an ad parody at the beginning of the film, and had roles in a few movies, including Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961), Sylvia (1965), A Guide for the Married Man (1967), and Track of Thunder (1967). She worked at the Desilu Studios on several TV shows, including Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Lucy Show, and The Lieutenant (produced by Gene Roddenberry). She received training in comedy from Lucille Ball. In 1960, she played Gwen Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver.

Star Trek

In various roles, Barrett participated in every incarnation of the popular science fiction Star Trek franchise 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 brunette 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 just 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.[4] William Shatner corroborated this in Star Trek Memories, and added that female viewers at test screenings hated the character, as well.[5] 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."[6] 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."[7]

When Roddenberry was casting for the second Star Trek pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", she changed her last name from Hudec to Barrett and wore a blonde wig for the role of nurse Christine Chapel, a frequently recurring character,[1] 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!".[4] 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.

Barrett returned years later in Star Trek: The Next Generation, cast as the outrageously self-assertive, 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. She later appeared as Ambassador Troi in several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where her character developed a strong relationship with Constable Odo.

She provided the regular voice of the onboard computers of Federation starships 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's voice in two episodes of the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise, thus making her the only actor to have a role in all six televised Star Trek series produced up to that time. She also lent her voice to various computer games and software related to the franchise. The association of her voice with interactions with computers led to Google's Assistant project being initially codenamed Google Majel. Barrett had also made a point of attending a major Star Trek convention each year in an effort to inspire fans and keep the franchise alive.

Barrett is also one of six actors (the others being Jonathan Frakes, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, Avery Brooks, and Michael Dorn) to lend their voices 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 ten 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 reboot of Star Trek.[8] Sean Rossall, a Roddenberry family spokesman, stated that she had already completed the voiceover work, around December 4, 2008. The film is dedicated to Roddenberry and Barrett.

Barrett and her husband were honored in 2002 by the Space Foundation with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award[9] for their work creating awareness of and enthusiasm for space.

Other roles

She appeared as Primus Dominic in Roddenberry's 1973 postapocalyptic TV drama pilot, Genesis II; as Dr. Bradley in his 1974 TV movie The Questor Tapes and as Lilith the housekeeper in his 1977 TV drama pilot, Spectre. She also appeared in Michael Crichton's 1973 sci-fi Western, Westworld as Miss Carrie, a robot brothel madam; the 1977 Stanley Kramer thriller The Domino Principle;[11] and the 1979 TV movie The Man in the Santa Claus Suit starring Fred Astaire. Her later film appearances included small roles in Teresa's Tattoo (1994) and Mommy (1995).

After Gene 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. She also served as creative director for Gene Roddenberry's Lost Universe, a comic book series based on another archival Roddenberry concept.[12]

In a gesture of goodwill between the creators of the Star Trek franchise and of Babylon 5 (some of whose fans viewed them as rivals),[13] 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".

Barrett's widely recognized voice performance as the Star Trek computer inspired the Amazon Alexa interactive virtual assistant, according to its developer Toni Reid, although Barrett had no direct role in it.[14]

Barrett and son Rod in 2008

Railroad voicework

The Southern Pacific Railroad used her voice talent contained inside Harmon Electronics (of Grain Valley, MO) track-side defect detector devices, used in various locations west of the Mississippi River. When a defect is identified on the passing train, the system responds with her recorded voice announcing the defect location information to the train crew over the radio. In railroad forums and railroad radio monitoring groups, she was and is still referred to as the "SP Lady". However, with the implementation of newer hotbox detector technology, finding her voice today on working detectors is very rare. The hotbox detectors that had her voice installed in them were not upgradeable to the newer digital signaling requirements, and finding parts for them was problematic. Today, her voice is found on smaller regional railroads, usually only at dragging equipment locations, such as in California at milepost 24.6 on the Metrolink Lancaster line (under the I-5 and I-210 interchange in Sylmar), and in Oregon on the Portland & Western at milepost 746.5, near Lake Oswego. These voiced detectors remain because the lines were once owned by Southern Pacific, and because only two unchanging recorded messages are used, compared to the dynamic changing library used in hotbox detectors. The only major railroad that still uses her voice today is Union Pacific.[15]

Final voiceover work

Some of Barrett's final voiceover work was still in post-production, to be released in 2009 after her death, as mentioned in the credits of the 2009 movie Star Trek, again as the computer's voice. An animated production called Hamlet A.D.D. credited her as Majel Barrett Roddenberry, playing the voiceover role of Queen Robot.[16]

Death

Barrett-Roddenberry died on the morning of December 18, 2008, at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, as a result of leukemia. She was 76 years old.[17]

A public funeral was held on January 4, 2009, in Los Angeles. More than 250 people attended, including Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, her on-screen daughter Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, and many Trekkies.[18]

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, but the launch has been delayed. The couple's cremated remains will be sealed into specially made capsules designed to withstand space travel. A rocket-launched spacecraft will carry the capsules, along with digitized tributes from fans.[19] The spacecraft was planned to launch in 2019.[20]

Filmography

References

  1. 1 2 3 Majel Barrett Roddenberry: Actress who found fame as the 'First Lady of Star Trek', The Daily Telegraph, December 21, 2008
  2. ↑ "1950 Shaker Heights High School Yearbook". classmates.com. (registration required)
  3. ↑ ODMP: William Hudec. Viewed 2014-12-06.
  4. 1 2 Solow, Herbert F.; Justman, Robert H. (1996). Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-89628-8.
  5. ↑ 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".
  6. ↑ William Shatner, Star Trek Memories, Harper Collins, 1993. p.65
  7. ↑ "Bio and interview of Majel Barrett". Creation presents Majel Barrett. August 25–26, 1990. Archived from the original on January 17, 2009. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  8. ↑ Roddenberry Productions press release, December 11, 2008. Retrieved December 18, 2008. Archived December 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ↑ – Space Foundation Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award Archived 2011-10-04 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ Star Trek creator's widow dies of leukaemia at 76, Daily Mail, December 20, 2008
  11. ↑ Majel Roddenberry. "Majel Barrett Roddenberry – Biography". Roddenberry.com. Archived from the original on 2011-11-06. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  12. ↑ "Tekno-Comix Debuts First Titles". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Ziff Davis (63): 232. October 1994.
  13. ↑ Ntua.gr Archived 2009-02-01 at the Wayback Machine.
  14. ↑ Green, Penelope (2017-07-11). "'Alexa, Where Have You Been All My Life?'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-07-12. When Toni Reid and her colleagues at Amazon set out to build the device that is now known as Alexa, they were inspired by the computer that drove the Enterprise on Star Trek (voiced by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who played Nurse Chapel on the series and was married to the show’s creator). Focusing on cadence and an accent that would suggest 'smart, humble, helpful,' the team tested voices that a diverse population would respond to. 'Our goal was to have Alexa be humanlike,' Ms. Reid said, but why end there?
  15. ↑ "Live Railroad Radio Communications". RailroadRadio.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12. Select UP San Francisco Bay Area for real-time communications feed.
  16. ↑ "Voyages of Star Trek Computer Voice Majel Barrett Roddenberry". Voices.com. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
  17. ↑ Sci-fi icon Majel Barrett Roddenberry dies at 76, Reuters, Thursday, December 18, 2008
  18. ↑ "L.A. funeral held for actress Majel Roddenberry". CTV News. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  19. ↑ "Gene Roddenberry, wife to spend eternity in space". USA Today. Associated Press. January 27, 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-31.
  20. ↑ "Celestis Voyager Flight Participants". Celestis.com. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
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