Beam Me Up Totty: The Babes of Star Trek

 

THE beautiful female cargo of Harcourt Fenton Mudd (Season 1, Episode 6 –  shown above) was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to galactic babes on the original Star Trek. Besides the fact that the Enterprise dress code required micro-minis for all female crew members, it seemed like every episode provided an opportunity for some sci-fi eye candy. Let’s browse through some episodes and see the smoking hot babes that await in The Final Frontier.

 

 

Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand

 

 

 

We have to first mention Yeoman Janice Rand, played by Grace Lee Whitney. Whitney was cut from the show before the first season ended – and the reasons for it remain unclear. It’s known that Whitney was struggling with alcoholism at the time; but it’s also been said that there were budgetary cuts. When it was determined that Kirk was not to be a one-woman guy, her value as a love interest went bye-bye, and subsequently so did her job.

 

 

 

That’s not to say Shatner didn’t have eyes for the lovely Yeoman. God knows he could barely pass through a scene without staring longingly at her chest. No doubt in my mind The Shat was banging the Yeoman. No doubt whatsoever…

 

 

 

The sad story is that after she was cut from Star Trek, Janice slipped even further into her alcohol addiction. Years later DeForest Kelley saw her waiting in an unemployment line and got her some small parts in the Star Trek movies. Janice has since come forward and said that she was sexually assaulted by a Star Trek executive, and this was in no small part why she left the show. Fact or Fiction – we may never know.

 

 

Mudd’s Women

 

 

Mudd’s women are, from left to right:

Karen Steele – Had a big role in Marty (1955), but after that it was just spots on TV shows.
Maggie Thrett – Had a brief singing career (working with Bob Crewe) until a near fatal motorcycle accident with Gram Parsons. After the incident, Thrett drifted away from the limelight.
Susan Denberg – German born Playboy Playmate of August 1966; also starred in Frankenstein Created Woman opposite Peter Cushing (1967), although her voice was dubbed due to her thick accent.

 

 

 

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry as Nurse Chapel

 

 

Other than being Gene Roddenberry’s wife and so-called “First Lady” of Star Trek, Majel was also a stone cold fox. But this episode (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, Season 1, Episode 7) is infamous for another space-age babe….

 

 

Sherry Jackson as Andrea

 

 

 

Sherry Jackson is primarily known for her role as the oldest daughter on The Danny Thomas Show. But like most young actresses, she “grew up” and got naked. Specifically, she had a nude scene in a Blake Edwards movie that was cut from the American release (Gunn, 1967), but appeared in Playboy that year.

 

 

Jackson plays “Andrea” an android with, evidently, no sense of modesty. You’ve got to hand it to the wardrobe department of Star Trek. They definitely knew what they were doing.

 

 

 

Marianna Hill as Lt. Helen Noel

 

 

 

“Dagger of the Mind” (Season 1, Episode 9) features the space hottie Marianna Hill as Lt. Helen Noel. Marianna played small parts in a ton of television shows, but what I found most interesting is that she’s a cousin of US General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

 

 

Jeez. How many boys “became men” after this Star Trek episode? Lieutenant Noel had to have been directly responsible for the “blossoming” of many a young lad.

 

 

 

Susan Oliver as Vena

 

 

Episode 12 featured one of several Green Girls to appear on the series. This one, Vena, was played by actress Susan Oliver, who would later become an accomplished pilot.

 

 

 

Barbara Anderson as Lenore Karidian

 

 

Barbara Anderson as Lenore Karidian in Episode 13. Anderson is best remembered for her role in the TV series Ironside.

Phyllis Douglas as Yoeman Mears

 

 

Phyllis Douglas plays Yoeman Mears in Episode 16 “The Galileo Seven”. She’s in most of the episode, yet she seems to spend most of it in that chair. She’s one of the titular “Seven”, yet given very little to actually do – which is why I love this moment from the episode. She looks absolutely bored while the men do all the work.

Phyllis is one of the last surviving cast members of Gone with the Wind. She played “Bonnie Blue Butler” at the age of two.

Emily Banks as Yeoman Tonia Barrows

 

 

Emily Banks plays Yeoman Tonia Barrows in “Shore Leave” (Season 1, Episode 15). Emily played on television here and there, from Mannix to The Tim Conway Show, but never really made it big.

 

 

I’m not quite sure what happened with Ms. Banks. She seemed to be going strong in the sixties with Elvis movies, a handful of other feature films, and some pretty big TV spots (Wild, Wild West and Dragnet). Then she shows a little skin in a 1970 biker movie called Hell’s Bloody Devils and it’s downhill from there.

Venita Wolf as Yeoman Teresa Ross

 

 

In this episode we find yet another nubile Yeoman (Yeoman Teresa Ross) figuring into the storyline. A Space Liberace transforms her standard miniskirt uniform into a flowing formal ball gown..

 

 

…. which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Kirk. The Captain won’t put up with such shenanigans. In a semi-awkward moment, Kirk throws a fit and manhandles Yeoman Ross, madly removing her gloves and feather..

 

 

Venita’s acting career would be short lived. After a few short spots on some TV shows, she married the manager of Canned Heat and called it quits. Oh, and she also landed in the July 1967 Playboy.

 

 

 

 

Madlyn Rhue as Lt. Marla McGivers

 

 

This is  the infamous Khan episode (“Space Seed” Episode 22 Season 1). In it, McGivers falls for Khan’s animal magnetism and actually helps him overtake the Enterprise.

 

 

Lt. McGivers is a historian, a respected academic….. now reduced to a fawning groupie of Khan. Sure, Khan slaps her around, ruins her career, and plans to destroy all her friends and colleagues….. but he’s so dreamy – can we blame her?

 

 

Despite being a primary character, Madlyn Rhue was unable to appear in the The Wrath of Khan, a sequel to this episode. Sadly, this was due to multiple sclerosis which rendered her unable to walk when the movie was filmed.

 

 

 

Lesley Parrish as Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas

 

 

Lesley Parrish starred as Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, the second episode of season two. In it, Scottie takes a shine to this expert in archaeology and anthropology. Unfortunately, so does the Space Apollo who fits her into some new duds…

 

 

Lesley is perhaps best remembered as Daisy Mae in Lil’ Abner, but she also had a big part in The Manchurian Candidate and a respectable resume in B movies.(i.e. The Giant Spider Invasion). Lesley married the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

 

 

Alyce and Rhea Andrece as The Alice Twins

 

 

In Episode 8 of Season 2 we once again find Mudd flanked by a bevy of robotic beauties ready to do his bidding, no matter how deviant and perverse. There’s the “Trudy” series android as well as the “Annabelle” line, but the most significant in this episode are the “Alice” twins…

 

 

Alyce and Rhea Andrece play Harvey Mudd’s special mechanical sex slaves; however, the story goes that the Star Trek casting crew picked up a couple twin prostitutes off Hollywood Boulevard for the roles first. After an “inspection” the hookers were deemed unsuitable.

 

 

Having no actresses picked just days before filming, Roddenberry was in a state of panic. Allegedly, he cruised the streets and found the Andrece girls, invited them into his car and gave them the part. It should be noted that urban legends surrounding Roddenberry’s casting couch are legion.

 

 

Of course, by the end of the episode, Kirk puts the kibosh on Mudd’s robot orgy. The Andrece twins went on to do precious little with their acting careers, Hell’s Bloody Angels being both the endpoint and pinnacle of a woefully short filmography.

 

 

 

Elinor Donahue as Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford

 

 

Elinor Donahue of Father Knows Best actually makes an appearance in “Metamorphosis” (Season 2, Episode 9). Of course, I liked her best as Chris Elliot’s mom on Get a Life. But that’s just me.

 

 

 

Angelique Pettyjohn as Shahna

 

 

One of the best remembered Star Trek babe has to be Angelique Pettyjohn as Shahna in the episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion” (Season 2, Episode 16). Due in no small part to the revealing costume, Shahna became quite the cult figure in later years.

 

 

After her role as Shahna, Angelique struggled with drugs and alcohol. She hit the burlesque circuit in Vegas and did some nude scenes in low budget films. By the time the Eighties rolled around, she was in hard core pornography. At one point, she had sunk so low that she was actually living in a cabin deep in the Virginia backwoods.

 

 

At one point we see Shahna rolling around in pain in her skimpy outfit. No doubt this little scene turned many a boy into a man…. seems a shame that such an icon would end up poor and alone in the woods.

But as fate would have it, the Star Trek phenomenon really started to take hold in the Eighties, and Trek conventions became a cottage industry. Angelique was able to latch on to that gravy train and earn a living from it until her death from cervical cancer in 1992.

 

 

And so ends our tour of the Trek babes for the time being. Many of you may be wondering – what, no Uhura? In due time, readers. In due time.  We have exceeded our story length limit, but all will be made right in the near future.

Star Trek had a commodity you don’t see much any more on the boob tube: interesting and important female characters who are also sizzling beauties. It was progressive and sexy. It’s hard to straddle both fences, but Roddenberry pulled it off. So often, in an effort to be PC, writers will just insert a default character known as “the strong female”. But they forget to make her interesting, unique, and three dimensional. In my opinion, Start Trek had tons of compelling female characters, but at the same time didn’t shy away from flaunting their beauty. Call it a contradiction if you will, I call it pure dynamite.

More to come.