Iconic Star Trek Role Was Created So Gene Roddenberry Could Get Lucky

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 19 seconds ago

Gene Roddenberry is a geek icon for a reason. The man created Star Trek, the best sci-fi franchise in the world. To the biggest fans, The Original Series and spinoffs like The Next Generation weren’t just great TV shows: they were visions of a better world, one that gave hope and inspiration to those who most needed it. Because of this and so much more, Roddenberry is downright revered. He was a talented writer, a gifted visionary, and a kind of adoptive father to fans all over the world. But he was also something a bit more down to Earth: one of the randiest men to ever walk the planet.

Roddenberry worked for the LAPD before working on TV shows, and he was notorious for having affairs with secretaries. This continued when he began working on Star Trek, and at one point, he tried to keep an open relationship with Nichelle Nichols (who played Uhura) and Majel Barrett (who would become his second wife). Basically, Roddenberry loved to play the field, and this occasionally resulted in changes to his most famous show. Specifically, he cast a young woman in Trek’s second pilot so he could have sex with her. When that didn’t pan out, her role went to Grace Lee Whitney, who became one of Star Trek’s earliest female icons.

Even Captains Need A Secretary

This story goes back to the earliest days of Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry had gotten some good news, bad news from NBC. The bad news was that they didn’t like his original pilot for the show, “The Cage,” which featured Captain Pike commanding the Enterprise. The good news was that they liked the concept of the show enough that they offered Roddenberry the unprecedented chance to do a second pilot episode. That episode was “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which featured entirely new actors (like William Shatner), an actor Roddenberry had wanted all along (DeForrest Kelley), and one returning actor from the original pilot (Leonard Nimoy). 

The aforementioned actors all played major roles throughout the entirety of Star Trek: The Original Series. But the show also had plenty of smaller roles. According to studio executive Herb Solow (as recorded in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story), Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to cast Andrea Domm as Captain Kirk’s yeoman. She was a model and fit the mold for the part. In the original pilot, Kirk also had a beautiful female yeoman, one who was played by Laurel Goodwin. This was Domm’s first acting job, but her role was nonetheless intended to become an ongoing character.

The Captain Doesn’t Always Get The Girl

At least, that was the case on paper. According to Solow, the role of yeoman was a “non-part.” He claimed that, “during the casting process, director Jimmy Goldstone overheard Gene say, ‘I’m hiring her because I want to score with her.” While Solow didn’t have any direct confirmation (after all, this was already secondhand information), he felt pretty confident that things didn’t work out for Roddenberry. “It was not only a non-part, I’m sure it was a non-score as well.” 

After “Where No Man Has Gone Has Gone Before,” Dromm never appeared in Star Trek again. Is it because she didn’t hook up with Roddenberry? Nope. She left of her own accord to star in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. Later, she felt some regret at exiting a sci-fi franchise that got wildly popular in favor of starring in an obscure movie. Solow had no regrets about her exit, though: after watching the episode, he created a hilariously mean fake news bulletin that read, “SEXY YEOMAN ANDREA DROMM FAILS TO SIZZLE! SLIPS INTO SUSPENDED ANIMATION!”

After this, Andrea Dromm’s only real impact on the franchise is that NBC inexplicably put her and William Shatner on the front cover of a brochure advertising their upcoming 1966-1967 television season, even knowing she had already exited the franchise. Fortunately, everything worked out: Dromm was replaced by Grace Lee Whitney, whose Yeoman Janice Rand became a beloved minor character on The Original Series and even made minor appearances in several films and even Star Trek: Voyager. Now, was Whitney the third beautiful, blonde yeoman in a row, after Laurel Goodwin and Andrea Dromm? Well, yes. But nobody ever accused Gene Roddenberry of not having a type!