7 Star Trek Actors Who Were Fired

7. Grace Lee Whitney

When Gene Roddenberry first devised the crew for Star Trek (well, technically this was the second time he did it, but more about that later...) he created the character of Yeoman Janice Rand, a personal assistant of sorts to Captain James T. Kirk. However, despite Grace Lee Whitney playing the part in the majority of the opening episodes, she was fired from the show before it concluded its first season.

The network and the producers claimed, at the time, that this decision was purely budgetary and they simply needed to streamline the cast to keep costs down but, years later, Whitney would reveal that she had been sexually assaulted by one of the show's executives and, in an effort to avoid any negative press, she was quietly let go from the show.

There's a happy ending of sorts though, as a sustained letter-writing campaign from fans and the support of her former cast members led to her being brought back in for the movies. She returned to the Enterprise for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, and even made the transfer to the Excelsior with Sulu in the Undiscovered Country.

She's never named the executive responsible because, in her words, this is her story, not his, but it remains a black mark in Star Trek's otherwise celebrated history.