Barrett was born in Cleveland, Ohio.[nb 1] She began taking acting classes as a child. She attended Shaker Heights High School, graduating in 1950[5][8] 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 while operating a police ambulance which was struck by an Erie Passenger Train at East 91st Street and Loren Avenue on August 30, 1955.[9] This tragedy occurred while Barrett was touring with an off-Broadway road company.
In various roles, Barrett participated in every incarnation of the popular science fictionStar Trekfranchise produced during her lifetime, including live-action and animated versions, television and cinema, and nearly 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 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.[10]William Shatner corroborated this in Star Trek Memories, and added that female viewers at test screenings hated the character as well.[11] Shatner noted that female 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."[12] 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".[13]
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 blond wig for the role of nurse Christine Chapel, a frequently recurring character,[2] who was introduced in "The Naked Time", the sixth new episode recorded, and was 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!"[10]
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, often visiting her daughter Deanna, the ship's counselor. 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. She made a point of attending a major Star Trek convention each year in an effort to inspire fans and keep the franchise alive.
On December 9, 2008, shortly before her death, Roddenberry Productions announced she would be providing the voice of the ship's computer once again, this time for the 2009 motion picture reboot of Star Trek.[15]
Other roles
My mother truly acknowledged and appreciated the fact that Star Trek fans played a vital role in keeping the Roddenberry dream alive for the past 42 years. It was her love for the fans, and their love in return, that kept her going for so long after my father passed away.
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.[18]
In a gesture of goodwill between the creators of the Star Trek franchise and of Babylon 5,[19] 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.[20]
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 film Star Trek, again as the voice of the Enterprise computer. An animated production called Hamlet A.D.D. credited her as Majel Barrett Roddenberry, playing the voiceover role of Queen Robot.[21]
Personal life and death
Barrett and son Rod in 2008
In 1969, while scouting locations in Japan for MGM,[22] Roddenberry realized that he missed Barrett, and proposed to her by telephone.[23] In the version recited by Herbert F. Solow, Roddenberry traveled to Japan with the intention of marrying Barrett.[22] She subsequently joined Roddenberry in Tokyo, where they were married in a Shinto ceremony on August 6, 1969.[24] Roddenberry had considered it "sacrilegious" to use an American minister in Japan,[23] and the ceremony was attended by two Shinto priests, as well as maids of honor. Roddenberry and Barrett both wore kimono, and spent their honeymoon touring Japan.[24] He continued to have liaisons with other women, telling his friends that, while in Japan, he had an encounter with a masseuse about a week after he was married.[25]
The new marriage was not legally binding, as his divorce from Eileen had not yet been finalized. This was resolved two days after his divorce was complete, and on December 29, a small ceremony was held at their home, followed by a reception for family and friends. Despite this, the couple continued to celebrate August 6 as their wedding anniversary. Roddenberry's young daughter, Dawn, decided to live with Barrett and him,[26] and the family moved to a new house in Beverly Hills the following October.[27] In February 1974, Barrett and Roddenberry had a son, Eugene Jr., commonly referred to as Rod Roddenberry.[23] They remained married until Roddenberry's death at Barrett's side on October 24, 1991, in Santa Monica, California.[28]
After her husband's death, Barrett-Roddenberry commissioned Celestis to launch her together with Gene on an infinite mission to deepest space.[29] After manifesting them on NASA's "Sunjammer" mission, the agency cancelled the mission in 2014.[30] Celestis rescheduled their launch for 2020, then later rescheduled for June 2022, the next available commercial mission to deep space.[31] A sample of the couple's cremated remains will be sealed into a specially made capsule designed to withstand space travel. A spacecraft will carry the capsule, along with digitized tributes from fans, on Celestis' "Enterprise Flight".[32] The flight will also contain the ashes of Nichelle Nichols and Douglas Trumbull.[33]
Barrett and her husband were honored in 2002 by the Space Foundation with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award[36] for their work creating awareness of and enthusiasm for space.
Amazon code-named the project that eventually became Alexa as “Majel.” [37]
^ abWhile many sources state that Barrett was born in Cleveland (e.g., Associated Press,[1]The Daily Telegraph,[2] Roddenberry Entertainment[3] and CBS Studios[4]), some sources say Columbus (e.g., Cleveland Plain Dealer,[5]Los Angeles Times[6] and, curiously, CBS Studios[7]).
^Green, Penelope (July 11, 2017). "Alexa, Where Have You Been All My Life?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 15, 2020. Retrieved July 12, 2017. 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?
