WTF!? Betty Page just died and now Majel?
Majel hurts a lot more for me, since I was (am?) a screaming fangirl. I came home from Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home and announced I wanted to join Starfleet. The woman who played Number One fascinated me. I always wondered what happened to her, and pretended she got her own ship. When playing Star Trek in elementary school, I remember Matt being Kirk, and Edric was Spock, and I wanted to be Number One. Of course, we argued that Kirk and Number One were on different crews so I could be Uhura, Scotty or McCoy – usually I was Scotty unless we felt a proper landing party was in order, but I digress. I liked Number One, she was cool, even though we only got to see her in flashbacks.
Then there was Nurse Chapel. Ahh, the woman who told everyone ‘Love Spock.’ Damn it, she was right too. She loved Spock and while her story was never really expounded on, I (again) pretend she married Spock and had little Spocklets and Christinelets. The story about how Majel, having been fired from being Number One because the network balked at a ‘woman’ being in charge, bleached her hair and showed up at her boyfriend, Gene Roddenberry’s, office. He didn’t recognize her, decided the network wouldn’t either, and re-hired her.
And finally we come to the Star Trek trifecta in Lawaxana Troi. Outrageous to the point that a drag queen would be jealous, Lawaxana infuriated stuck-up Picard, horrified her (slightly) prudish daughter, and flirted with everything. We loved laughing over Lawaxana. She cheered everyone up.
Even if she wasn’t on the show, you can’t watch Star Trek without hearing her. She was the Ship Computer for every TV show (yes, even Enterprise) and movie. I suspect the first time I hear her in the upcoming movie, I’ll burst out crying.
I hope they send her ashes into space. The First Lady of Space deserves no less than the immortality that, and Star Trek, will give her.