MAJEL BARRETT

February 23, 1932

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was born in Cleveland, Ohio as  Majel Leigh Hudec. 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 and is known as ‘The First Lady of Star Trek.’  

Her screen debut came in a brief uncredited appearances in 1957′s Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and 1958′s The Black Orchid. Her first credited roles were also in 1958, in As Young as We Are and The Buccaneer.  

She made her television debut in an August 1959 episode of Desilu’s “Whirlybirds”.  The following year she played a waitress on Desilu’s hit gangster series “The Untouchables” (above). 

She was seen in “The Desilu Revue,” a Christmas Day 1959 variety show presentation of “The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse.”  Barrett (left) and Lucy (right) bookend Carole Cook and Georgine Darcy.

In the opening number, her last name is misspelled!  

In “Lucy is a Kangaroo for a Day” (TLS S1;E7) on November 12, 1962, she played Miss Massey, a secretary. 

“It was the studio [Desilu] mainly. They wanted a show set in space. Gene wanted to do one that was more science fiction. So he decided to combine them both and see what happens.” ~ Majel Barrett

She first appeared in the initial “Star Trek” pilot, “The Cage” (1964), as first officer, “Number One”. Barrett was romantically involved with the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry, whose marriage was on the verge of failing at the time. 

When Roddenberry was casting for the second 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, who was introduced in “The Naked Time”, the sixth new episode recorded, and was known for her unrequited affection for the dispassionate Spock. 

On August 6, 1969 (coincidentally Lucille Ball’s birthday) after “Star Trek” had been canceled, Majel Barrett and Gene Rodenberry married in Japan, despite the fact that he was not yet divorced from his first wife.  When they returned to America, the divorce was finalized and they legally wed in the US.  The two had a son together in 1975.  

Majel Barrett Roddenberry died on December 18, 2008, aged 76, from leukemia.