The forbidden topic: Who raped Grace Lee Whitney?

[Atrahasis]

Excerpts from her autobiography

Or try this one:

Excerpts from her autobiography

From what I can tell this topic gets shut down when someone starts talking about it!

Review:

Whitney's Star Trek character, Yeoman Janice Rand, appeared for only half a season, yet fans still send her mail. Her assisted account of her hitch on the Enterprise begins with her nightmarish rape by an executive she declines to name. Later she imparts how that incident affected her: she became alcoholic. Meanwhile, we learn that she smoked and had sex when very young--both behaviors, she says, are early signs of an addictive personality. She recounts her spiritual journey, from the Methodist Church to rejecting religion to Judaism, pointing out that spiritual understanding is a very important aspect of recovery, but her Star Trek production memories and analyses, especially her remarks about getting the role and later having it written out of the show, and her re sume of her non-ST career are more interesting. She is civil, perhaps remarkably so, when discussing people who victimized her or said nasty things about her and winds up exemplifying how one can, it seems, rise above anything. Jeff Ahrens--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The question: Who did it?

[Lord Schtupp]

Hey u know what I don't mean to brag but I put that book together: I did the cover transparency scan, color corrected and output the color separation film, and formatted the pages in book signatures for the print house that printed the book. For my effort the print broker who handled the job for her gave me one of the first hardbound copies printed, then I got to meet Grace at the book signing, where she signed it in absolutely the most beautiful flowing signature I have ever seen. Among my most prized possessions. In fact she lives only about five or so miles from me.

Since I have the book, I can pretty much safely say that it was Gene. Now as you can see in the excerpt, she refers to the culprit as "The Executive" , who was about to get a divorce (like Gene at this time), and never states who it was. However, a later chapter "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" in the book she devotes entirely to Gene, and its quite revealing.

In that chapter she goes on at length about Genes atheism and the struggle of the portrayal of religion in the show, then she mentions his affair with Nichelle Nicols, and finally about his self admitted sex addiction and womanizing, as reveled by a couple of excerpts of Genes interview for Yvonne Ferns book "Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation" . She is quite forgiving in tone, and states that this is because "I was even more sex-obsessed and out-of-control than Gene. So I don't judge him. I identify with him."

There is the fact that a week after the incident, her agent called Grace to tell her that she had been wrotten out of the show, despite her popularity. At the time her confidant was Leonard Nimoy, and she states that if it where not for him, she would have committed suicide. He is the only person other than Grace that knows the identity of the "Executive".

So in reading the two chapters together (The "Rape" chapter is the first chapter in the book, Gene's is second to last) it is fairly obvious that Gene is the one, but also that Grace has totally forgiven him.

[CaptainPierce]

Was there anybody else, early on in TOS, that could have had the sort of influence over her career that "The Executive" had, by her account? It almost has to have been Roddenberry, just based on that alone...

[Atrahasis]

Wow small world!

You surprise me Schtupp, how did you keep your relationship with this book secret until now? Great job on the cover btw, it seems to leap right out at you!

I do agree it can't be anyone else but Gene. The thing that gives it away for me is not only Gene's infamous nature for womanizing, but Grace's reference to the woman that 'the Executive' was seeing at the time, who was none other than Majel Barrett, whom Grace would have gotten to know for sure. "What about her, don't you love her?" she asks. Why the heck would Grace give half a damn about hurting the feelings of Gene's woman...unless Grace knew her personally! If it were any other 'studio exec', why would his wife come down to the studio and come to be known to and by people like Grace? There would have been few and far between, but Majel was the only one who was shacking up with the executive producer as well as on the show at the time, that we are probably aware of. At least I haven't heard of any others!

Doesn't all of this point out how hard it can be for a woman to even name her accuser if something like this happens to her? Think of why she doesn't just come out and say it....because it would be a very bad political game for her. People love Gene so much that had she named him directly she would have been called every name in the book.

Another intersting tidbit is this: Apparently, Shatner in one of his memoirs says that Grace was raped TWICE, once by an exec and another time by a cast member....a prominent cast member. But that's really suspect because how often does a woman have to get raped on a show before she gets so shaken up she leaves? Just that experience with Gene was enough, by her own words, to want to quit on life.

[Atrahasis]

I just reviewed "Charlie X", episode #7 which was right before "Balance of Terror", and Yeoman Rand gets billing over Uhura! Sulu and Scott are not in the episode so they don't appear in the credits, but it goes to show you how much they thought of Rand..they knew she was popular...and also she had extensive acting credits before Trek. To come right after McCoy and before the rest of the bridge crew is an honor indeed. To bad she had it all taken way from her....





Now, to be fair, she did re-appear in 1978/9 in ST:TMP as Rand, I guess more than 10 years after her time with Trek...but I personally find myself wishing that people had not been such assholes to her so that she may have continued her time on TOS.

[Lord Schtupp]

admin said:

Wow small world!

You surprise me Schtupp, how did you keep your relationship with this book secret until now? Great job on the cover btw, it seems to leap right out at you!

Thank you, she said that as well and even gave me a nice sqeezy hug. I was hugged by yeoman Janice Rand. Now how freakin great is that! The transparency was a 6cm x 7cm color slide basically that I drum-scanned at about 5000 dpi ( much more than what is required for a 8x10 book cover), and required some cleaning up due to age. Of course I spent an inordinate amount of time on it as I wanted total perfection (naturally:D), and I printed out a couple of 24x36 posters of it for myself and a bud of mine. The glossy hardbound cover looks great with nice contrast and deep saturated color, the preview image on the web doesn't really do it justice. As for the secrecy this seemed to be a good time as any to bring it up, she being the only Trek cast member that I have met personally though it was only a book signing.

admin said:

I do agree it can't be anyone else but Gene. The thing that gives it away for me is not only Gene's infamous nature for womanizing, but Grace's reference to the woman that 'the Executive' was seeing at the time, who was none other than Majel Barrett, whom Grace would have gotten to know for sure. "What about her, don't you love her?" she asks. Why the heck would Grace give half a damn about hurting the feelings of Gene's woman...unless Grace knew her personally! If it were any other 'studio exec', why would his wife come down to the studio and come to be known to and by people like Grace? There would have been few and far between, but Majel was the only one who was shacking up with the executive producer as well as on the show at the time, that we are probably aware of. At least I haven't heard of any others!

Doesn't all of this point out how hard it can be for a woman to even name her accuser if something like this happens to her? Think of why she doesn't just come out and say it....because it would be a very bad political game for her. People love Gene so much that had she named him directly she would have been called every name in the book.

Grace, as well as everybody else, stood in awe of Gene, and had worked with him as Lily Monroe on his unsold pilot show "Police Story" and also on "The Lieutenant". So here she already had a history with Gene and that in itself would have been enough to forgive him his one "transgression". Now then she really loved being a part of Star Trek and also knew that Gene had some Hollywood type power, but she regarded the cast and crew of Star Trek as family so I think that this is the reason she didn't turn him. Had it been any other executive, I believe that it would have been a different story. Probably in the same reasoning that the majority of molestation victims don't turn their own fathers or uncles in for their crimes. She doesn't, however, blame herself, unlike most of those victims.

The clincher is that in the "Great Bird of the Galaxy" chapter she talks about Genes atheism at length (she is very religious now) and then his sex-addiction, but in the end "forgives" Gene though she isn't specific. Given her newfound faith and her general positive tone throughout the book (Grace actually defends Shatner regarding his "self-absorbing" personality and expounds on Genes greatness 10 times more than his failings) she mentions nothing else about "The Executive". She handled the rape incident much better than being written out of Star Trek, which was the real cause of the downturn in her life at that time.

admin said:

Another intersting tidbit is this: Apparently, Shatner in one of his memoirs says that Grace was raped TWICE, once by an exec and another time by a cast member....a prominent cast member. But that's really suspect because how often does a woman have to get raped on a show before she gets so shaken up she leaves? Just that experience with Gene was enough, by her own words, to want to quit on life.

Although she chastises Shatner for a couple of items in his memoir Star Trek Memories, she says nothing of a second rape nor Shatner's mention of it. She denies his statement of her being drunk on the set and her performances where getting worse and worse because of it, which Shatner says was the reason she was "written out" of the series. This I feel is total bullshit and Shatner's "Star Trek Memory" is biased by his own self absorbed point of view. After all do you or anyone here think she played her character poorly? Shatners proof is the fact that In Dagger of the Mind Janice Rand was originally to have the part of Helen Noel, but it was rewritten because of Grace's drinking problem. Well the actual reason was that the producers decided that they did not want Kirk and Rand to have a personal relationship or history as that would upset the professional dynamic already established on the show. Quite sensible in my opinion. If anything is to be taken with a grain of salt, it is Shatner's "Star Trek Memories".

admin said:

I just reviewed "Charlie X", episode #7 which was right before "Balance of Terror", and Yeoman Rand gets billing over Uhura! Sulu and Scott are not in the episode so they don't appear in the credits, but it goes to show you how much they thought of Rand..they knew she was popular...and also she had extensive acting credits before Trek. To come right after McCoy and before the rest of the bridge crew is an honor indeed. To bad she had it all taken way from her....

Now, to be fair, she did re-appear in 1978/9 in ST:TMP as Rand, I guess more than 10 years after her time with Trek...but I personally find myself wishing that people had not been such assholes to her so that she may have continued her time on TOS.

In the beginning Gene was quite clear in that there where four main characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Rand. He drew a close parallel to "Gunsmoke" and wanted a similar dynamic between characters with Rand's "Miss Kitty" to Kirk's "Matt Dillon", and that shows how prominent Rand was going to become. In fact, the "Incident" takes place on the studio grounds in the office of "The Executive" right after the Wrap party of "Charlie X" where he lures Grace with talk about further character development of Janice Rand. Aside from "Miri", Charlie X is one of Rand's biggest roles in Trek.

Though they had two more days of shooting for Charlie X, they held the traditional wrap party that friday night. The next tuesday shooting begins again, and in the makeup room the Executive comes in and uncharacteristically in a rather lame manner, gives Grace this polished stone as a gift. Grace only weakly says thank you. Nimoy was there and is witness to this - he already knows the scoop. Charley X shooting ends the next day, and the day after that Grace is called by her agent to tell her she is out of Star Trek, and she is shattered.

In 1976 she finds out from a book by Gene's executive assistant that the #3 most asked question to Gene was "What happened to Grace Lee Whitney? On a lark, Grace calls the assistant and finds out that Gene is frantic about finding her and that he whats her to have a big role in Star Trek Phase II. She goes to his office to meet him and he is positively ecstatic, and tells her that dropping her from Star Trek was the biggest mistake he has ever made. Of course Phase II gets dropped a couple of months later but as you mentioned that she has a part in TMP.

I think more apologizing went on in that reunion with Gene than she reveals, but at the very least we know from her book that she had totally reconciled with Gene; and the rape incident, whoever the culprit was, is totally behind her and she is a strong, happy, and still very beautiful person to this day.

[Atrahasis]

What a great story!

Though I do feel like going back in time and giving Gene a kick in the ass for using her and then firing her from the show...like a real slime!

Btw, are you sure it was during filming of "Charlie X" that the incident occured? I know the early eps were not aired in order, but "Charlie" is listed as ep #7, much too early for this to have happened, isn't it? Doesn't she say in that excerpt I link to that it was after filming "Miri", which was ep #11, and then IT happened and she knew she was on her way out, and then in ep #12, "Conscience of the King", Rand does not have any speaking lines but rather gives a cold stare to Lenore who she senses as a rival for Kirk's affections, and that is her very last appearance?

As for Shatner....dammit, he's an actor, not an historian! ;D Personally, I find it hard to believe anything that the playful, womanizing, self-absorbed man says. It doesn't stop me from liking him of course, but when it comes to veracity....that's another story.

Nimoy on the other hand is much more credible.

Did Nimoy ever bring up Rand in his memoirs?

[Lord Schtupp]

Ah yes- my mistake, it was Miri, not charlie X. She gives dates throughout; Aug 26, 1966 was the "Incident"; Sept 1st she gets the bad news, and Sept 8th is the network premiere of Star Trek. So this all happend before the fans got to know the yeoman.

[Atrahasis]

Hey that's right...she was off even before the first episode had aired!

Now, about the sexual assault deal: True, they were both tipsy from drinking at the time, and although Gene using his position as producer to corner her like that was just reprehensible, imo Gene should have tried harder afterwords to smooth things over with her.

I mean, even in backwards religious societies the man has to marry a woman if he rapes her....something like that at least factors in the idea that a man has to take repsonsibility for the woman's future afterwards.

But for Gene to do that to her and to immediately throw her off the show instead of trying to make it up to her somehow....

Doesn't that even break the rules of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" kind of thinking in Hollywood? If a starlet sleeps with a producer, doesn't he at least owe her something?

It's times like this that point out to me the fallacious nature of a totally atheistic point of view...that it can at times degenerate into a license to do whatever you want. Gene's action was in fact inconsiderate, selfish, ruthless, and non-repenting, which by the way are the hallmark traits of probably any fascist regime you name that has been responsible for mass murder or oppression, or a general callousness regarding people.

There has to be a a balance in one's soul between desires and consideration of others, and Gene did not seem to have it back then.

[S33K100]

I don't mean to step on any toes here but I've got to take objection to you lumping me and every other hardline atheist in with the not-so-great bird of the galaxy there, atheism isn't a license to do whatever you want.

To me atheism is a freedom from the unnecessary restrictions of religion (that said behavioural freedom was not the reason I became an apostate); even so, all decent people adhere to some code of conduct, wether it stems from religious or spiritual obligations like in your case or simply from a sense of obligation to soceity as in mine. I would never conceive of raping anyone, no matter the circumstances; but it has nothing to do with a bearded dude up in the clouds telling me I'll burn in hell, it's because I recognise that it is a behaviour that runs contrary to the survival of our soceity and even our species.

Anyway, aside from that comment this has been a fascinating read, thankyou Atra and Schtupp for shedding light on this, sordid part of Gene's life; Gene BTW was a humanist as far as I'm aware, which is a very different thing from even a 'weak' atheist.

[Lord Schtupp]

admin said:

It's times like this that point out to me the fallacious nature of a totally atheistic point of view...that it can at times degenerate into a license to do whatever you want. Gene's action was in fact inconsiderate, selfish, ruthless, and non-repenting, which by the way are the hallmark traits of probably any fascist regime you name that has been responsible for mass murder or oppression, or a general callousness regarding people.

The exact same thing can be said of a totally religious point of view. I agree with S33K and I too take some exception with Atras statement of the "fallicious" nature of the atheistic point of view, and his comparision with facist governments. I respect as always Atras opinion as I do from any intelligent person, but I totally disagree with Atra here. Religion does not correlate with the morality of a person. Witness all the assholes that run Washington DC right now and what they do in the name of religion. Many examples thoughout history but I think you get my drift. 'Nuff said there.

Also in general I resent being lumped into a group (The Atheists, what an ugly sounding word) and this underlines the propensity of the religious to group the "unbelievers" into an easy to hate foe, with which they can rally the "faithful" against. I am totally independant from any "belief" organisation and my faith, if you will, in science is enough for me to explain the mysteries of the universe.

That all being said, I say to Atra that no offence is taken and to me this is just another debating point. Also my view of anybody who takes a contrary view or beilief from myself on any subject is diminished not at all, especially here at this forum. Its all cool. I hope.

[Atrahasis]

Now Schtupp, you know I'm not very religious myself, so for me to have meant that people who don't believe in god or are not religious are crappy is obviously shooting myself in the ass....which I try not to do. That's not what I meant at all.

And of course I do agree with your point that religious extremism can be just as crappy as a total unfeeling atheisism.

But when I said 'atheism', I meant the extreme conclusion of it, the kind that is so far to the extreme of the spectrum that even some kind of basic spirituality is out of the question.

Think of what atheism is and the most logical extreme conclusion that it brings: basically, that although there may be reasons to behave like a nice person towards others to maintain a good society, this is assuming that the person in question is not a total selfish egomaniac.

If he is, then the only logical conclusion is total disregard for other lives and in the end suicide, because life technically does not matter. There were a few atheist philosophers who ended up killing themselves in the end from that kind of reasoning.

This, in a nbutshell, is the danger of a complete atheism...it can degenerate into a selfish myopism that becomes unempathic to the feelings and existence of others.

I personally think people like that are relatively rare, and that most people who profes themselves to be atheists these days are in fact not true atheists. They are in fact some kind of agnostic or even members of a non-god-centered religion, which in my book cannot qualify as a true atheism because you need to be devoid of even a belief in spirit for that.

Now, when I made my comments in relation to Gene...I was basically saying that to me he acted exactly like how a selfish egomaniac would have. He is also a self-professed atheist. That kind of combination can make up a crappy person, because even if you don't believe in god or some kind of spirituality, you at least have to learn to be empathic and sympathetic to others. Had Gene been more like that, I don't think he could have used and thrown away Grace Lee Whitney like that.

[S33K100]

We are all in agreement that Gene was a selfish egomaniac in acting the way he did, but I still disagree that the cause of his jackarsery was his lack of spirituality, you suggest a causal link when in fact there is none. I am what is classified as a 'strong' atheist, that means I deny the existence of even any spiritual nature to the universe, absolutely anything explained through spirits is just an excuse for something we haven't found the scientific cause for yet. However by your reasoning I should act like a complete arsehat, I generally do not, because I still have a code of conduct I adhere to that I arrived at through independent introspection, I based it mostly on a weakened form of social utilitarianism, with some allowance for the needs of few mixed in.

Now I cannot speak for any other atheists or agnostics or whatever the hell they want to call themselves, only myself as we are not a single group as Schtupp pointed out. All I can say is from personal experience the other 'atheists' I've met are generally decent people in my book, pretty much all of them would be classified as the 'weak' branch of atheism by philosophers though.

[Atrahasis]

True, just being egocentric or an egomaniac can be independent of whether one is an atheist or not.

But there IS a difference between an egocentric athiest and an egocentric religious person: The former, in the end, is not really restricted in how he acts towards others, because the only law that is relevant to him is his own law. But the latter can be reigned in and argued with on his own ground by quoting scripture that says that we must all love each other, which he believes to be law. In fact, let's say a person is not really religious but spiritual in some way...he can be reigned in by quoting just about any scripture be it Christianity or Buddhism or Deepak Chopra or whatever. But stuff like that would fall on deaf ears for the egocentric atheist, which makes them by definition harder to control.

Religion and spirituality DO add a measure of ethical backbone to a society, even in our modern ones. Even if people don't follow it by the letter, it nevertheless serves as a reference point or as a measure. For example, it is the power that reigns in rampant scientific exploration, and it is also the power that preserves life by opposing abortion. Especially in the light of its pro-life stance, by contrast you have to define the pro-choice movement as one that more or less favors death. But when the two exist in a society togetehr you have that critical balance that is the fabric of our existence.

I recommend the writings of William Blake to explore this idea further, that everything in the universe is a balance of opposing forces. Going too far in either direction has its problems, but both extremes are necessary for existence. In his own words "He who seeks to destroy either seeks to destroy life" (paraphrase).

[S33K100]

'it is the power that reigns in rampant scientific exploration, and it is also the power that preserves life by opposing abortion. Especially in the light of its pro-life stance, by contrast you have to define the pro-choice movement as one that more or less favors death.'

I'm sorry but I fail to see your point here, as far as I'm concerned any limitation on the expansion of our scientific knowledge is against the best interests of humanity and stifles our progress as a species and our enlightenment as a society.

As regards abortion I am firmly opposed to the pro-lifers, a foetus is a parasite to the mother carrying it, it is her choice, and hers alone in the end wether she wants to carry the baby to term or not. I do not believe in any mumbo-jumbo sanctity of life; life is cheap, millenia of warfare and natural disasters have shown us that if nothing else.

I have no inherent right to exist just because I'm human, nor does anyone else in this world. In the end we are all just a chemical process, we are nothing special.

I also disagree that it is harder to reign in an egocentric atheist, you describe the strings which must be pulled to control a religious zealot - scripture. With an atheist, the strings are still there, they are however, much harder to find. Everyone has a code of conduct they adhere to, no one is completely random in their actions, you could with patience find out how to control my behaviour through reasoning with me but you wouldn't be able to do it quoting scripture.