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Paperback
Publisher: Quill Driver Books
Leonard Nimoy
She opened for jazz great Billie Holiday, shared the set with Marilyn Monroe, and flirted on-screen with Jack Lemmon. In her dream role, Gene Roddenberry beamed her aboard the Starship Enterprise as Yeoman Janice Rand in the original “Star Trek” series. But a terrifying sexual assault on the studio lot and her lifelong feelings of emptiness and isolation would soon combine to turn her starry dream into a nightmare.
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| Yeoman Rand Gets Her Due |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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I remember when I first laid eyes on Grace Lee Whitney. It was an airing of the Star Trek episode "The Man Trap". At the time the only woman I know who's on the show was Uhura, so I thought she was one of those girls-of-the-week guest stars. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was a recurring character in the show's early episodes..in fact, one of the main characters. I never understood why her character disappeared and it was a shame, as Yeoman Rand character certainly added a lot to the show, especially in episodes like Miri, Charlie X and The Enemy Within.
Grace Lee Whitney's autobiography is easily one of the more overlooked of the Trek bios as even though she was a major character in the show, and it is also one of the more disturbing and eye-opening.
Grace Lee Whitney was adopted by the Whitney family while still an infant. I have to said that her adoptive mother was a real "B", as she revealed to Grace while she was in her early teens that she was not her "real" mother. This seem to marked a turning point for Grace as she embarked what became a life-long quest to fill that sense of emptiness and belonging. Being born with an addictive personality, booze, drugs and sex naturally and coveniently filled that emptiness.
Grace had a career that any actor would kill for. While not famous, she was a prolific actress and worked constantly. When she was casted as Yeoman Rand in Star Trek, it seems she has finally find a surrogate home she can called her own. That came to a crashing end when Yeoman Rand was written out of the show. Sure, actors loses jobs and get written out of shows all the time, for the most part, they moved on. But not for Grace Lee Whitney. Star Trek became her lifeline and for years afterward, Whitney tried to numb her anger and sorrow with more booze, drugs and sex. The rest of the book chronicled her continual descent and eventual recovery and her road to sobriety.
After reading the bio, I have to say that Grace Lee Whitney doesn't give herself enough credit for her recovery. Her story could have easily been a "poor me a victim of 400 years of oppression" story, but instead, she blamed no one but herself for what she went through (yes, even when she was sexually assualted by an un-named TV exec, she realizes that she should have known better than to place herself in such a vulnerable situation). Her story could also easily have ended like that of Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Judy Garland, James Dean and even Elvis Presley. We easily could have been reading her obituary, but instead luckily, we are reading that she is alive and well and probably more happy than she has ever been.
In any case, her bio reminds us that in the end, where we eventually ended up is the result of the choices we make. Life is not fair and some people are dealt with a better hand of cards than others..in the end, we still have the freedom to choose where we're going.
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| The Longest Recovery |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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It would be easy to ignore "The Longest Trek" as perhaps being the least significant of Trek biographies, but that would be a mistake. Yes, it's a biography of a minor original Trek actress who lasted only one season and in a rather "fifth wheel" role at that, but fortunately for readers the stories of Grace's pre-Trek Hollywood days are damningly interesting, while her post-Trek days are interestingly damning.
As has been noted elsewhere while the book is an autobiography, its main purpose is to serve as a mea culpa for all the disservices done to her friends, lovers, self and career due to alcoholism. But not just alcoholism - in a broader sense Grace suffers from an addictive personality, which when combined with a rather naïve outlook serves only to reinforce her problem. These issues alone could have resulted in an extremely ponderous book on recovery and religious conversion (is Grace simply trading one addiction for another?) but fortunately it's an interesting trip that probably would not have been written if not for the fact that Grace has little to lose by doing so.
Grace is not a deep thinker - she tends to stop analyzing things once she comes up with a rationale that fits the way she'd like them to be, and when it comes to her understanding of other people's motivations, of religion, of cause-and-effect... the simplest explanation is often the chosen one. One can only consider that "The Executive" was already aware that she was to be written out of the series before making his detestable (re-)casting couch pass, that the writers were never quite sure what to do with the character of Janice Rand, and that her lengthy grudge against Roddenberry for not sticking up for her is the main motivation for the rather hypocritical character-assassination chapter where Grace the Sexually Unfaithful Alcoholic Converted Jewish Atheist Turned Dry Born Again Christian lambastes Gene for being a secular humanist in an open marriage. Oh, the irony.
It's best to stop here - much more could be said, but my main thrust in writing all this is to hope that readers will not be scared off by the religious or recovery overtones and enjoy the book. I would have liked to have read more about working with the rest of the Trek cast (only Spock & Kirk receive much mention) but it's fascinating reading nonetheless.
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| A study in addiction |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Grace Lee Whitney writes this book for "Star Trek" fans, certainly, but what she says to addicts -- and those whose lives are affected by them -- is far more powerful. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Whitney and reviewing this autobiography for The Detroit News when the book was first released. I was struck by her graciousness and kindness, but I was also struck by the gritty strength she conveys in this book. Frankly describing incidents like her hit-and-run on Grand River Avenue in Detroit, and her guarding the bathroom door of a Chicago club while the heroin-addicted Billie Holiday was getting shot-up inside, she just puts it out there, none too concerned what her cult-TV fans will think of her. You've got to appreciate that. And it's pretty clear, throughout the book, that her motives are not to make herself look good, or bad, but to shine a light on the effects of a gruesome and very common illness.
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| the lady deserves an editor |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Grace Lee Whitney sounds like a warm, charming, witty, delightful person, and I enjoyed her cautionary tale of substance abuse in the life of a working film actress (not a "star"). In addition, it was great to read a female account of the Star Trek phenomenon NOT written by a woman hell- (or heaven!) bent on proving she is a better man than any or all the men in the known universe.
I think Ms. Whitney was mis-served by her publisher or, perhaps, her collaborator, however. Her book is choppy, repetitive, and contains some misstatements. (Was the character's name "Uhura" or "Uhuru"? How many kids does Shatner have?) A good editor or ghost writer could have limited the meandering, tightened the focus, fact-checked, and improved some of the diction without losing the author's own voice. This is not a criticism of the author (who is a professional actress, not a professional writer) but of the people who printed the book. It is insulting to literate readers to find the equivalent of the following sentence on virtually every page of this book: "I was a green kid wearing bobby sox with my high-heeled shoes, taking it all in with my youthful fascination." (p. 29) (No, I did not red-pencil the book as I read--I opened to a random page to cull that example.)
I'm writing this because Ms. Whitney has points to make about religion and the human spirit that risk getting lost beneath the bad prose. Many educated (perhaps over-educated) people who might benefit from her points will, sadly, refuse even to consider them as they are written; these are the people who know they know everything and turn down their noses on the literary efforts even of C. S. Lewis and Thomas Merton. There is definitely a sharp mind and an excellent psychologist within Grace Lee Whitney, as are shown in her analysis of Gene Rodenberry and some of her throw-away points (such as the religious nature of Star Trek to some of its fans). By her own account she is a person with a lot of energy and perseverence. She deserved the help of someone who could have produced a book that might have transcended both the "Star Trek" and the "Twelve Step" genres.
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| What a Trek! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Grace Lee Whitney was a large part of Star Trek in the beginning and I always wondered why she just disappeared from the series..Well, this very insightful autobiography tells you, along with other very interesting anecdotes about her involvement with the series. Yeoman Rand was an interesting character and it would have been neat to see where Grace would have taken this character if she had been allowed to continue in the role.
It's quite revealing how Grace plunged into the depths of alcoholism and other addictions and how she literally "ruined" her career in Hollywood with a bad reputation. However, it's quite inspiring to read how she pulled herself out of this hole and gradually came in touch with her religion and the realization that she needed to change her aberrant behavior and start respecting herself again..For anyone who has experienced great lows in their life, they should read this book and be inspired!
Of all the autobiographies written by former castmembers this is the one that is most heartbreaking..however it does have a happy ending! For all you Trekkies out there this is a must read!!
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