Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Beverly Crusher

10. If You CAN Do, Teach; If You CAN Teach, Do

Gates McFadden and her Star Trek counterpart are two of the finest reasons to dismiss that old George Bernard Shaw binarism — "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" — as the bunch of bull it is. McFadden has forged a supremely successful career out of doing both supremely well, and Beverly Crusher is doctor, surgeon, teacher, mother, researcher, head of Starfleet Medical, take your pick!

At the very beginning of the creation process for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beverly Crusher was, in fact, the ship's schoolteacher. As cited in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From the Next Generation to J.J. Abrams, it was story editor/creative consultant David Gerrold who suggested otherwise: "We don't have a ship's doctor yet, why don't we have Beverly Crusher be the ship's doctor?" Others were hesitant, "And then Gene started discussing it. By lunch, Beverly Crusher was the ship's doctor".

Doctor Crusher herself taught acting and was a playwright and producer, but before becoming Beverly, Gates McFadden had already spent several years as a theatre teacher in higher education at George Washington University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Harvard! She also continued to teach at several different universities (including her alma mater Brandeis) after The Next Generation had finished. McFadden is an accomplished theatre director and was artistic director of Ensemble Studio Theatre in Los Angeles for five years.