Grace Lee Whitney

Grace Lee Whitney

Born: April 1, 1930
Died: May 1, 2015
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Grace Lee Whitney (April 1, 1930 - May 1, 2015) was an American actress and singer, best known for her role as Janice Rand on the original Star Trek television series and subsequent Star Trek films. Born Mary Ann Chase, she was adopted by the Whitney family, who changed her name to Grace Elaine. She started her entertainment career as a "girl singer" on Detroit's WJR radio at the age of fourteen. After she left home, she began to call herself Lee Whitney, eventually becoming known as Grace Lee Whitney. In her late teens, she moved to Chicago where she opened in nightclubs for Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich, and toured with the Spike Jones and Fred Waring Bands.

Whitney debuted on Broadway in Top Banana, playing Miss Holland. Following the successful run of the show, she joined the cast in Hollywood, where she recreated the role in the 1954 movie of the same name. In Los Angeles, Whitney auditioned for and was cast in the starring role of Lucy Brown in the national tour of The Threepenny Opera.

Whitney made more than a hundred television appearances following her television dramatic debut in Cowboy G-Men in 1953; The Real McCoys, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Bat Masterson, The Rifleman, 77 Sunset Strip, Bewitched, Batman, and The Untouchables. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Whitney was also on live television shows including You Bet Your Life, The Red Skelton Show, The Jimmy Durante Show and The Ernie Kovacs Show. Whitney was cast as a member of the all-female band in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot. She shared several scenes with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe, including the famed "upper berth" sequence. She had uncredited roles in House of Wax, Top Banana, The Naked and the Dead, and Pocketful of Miracles.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry cast Whitney in the role of Yeoman Janice Rand, the personal assistant to Captain James T. Kirk, in 1966. Whitney appeared in eight of the first fifteen episodes, after which she was released from contract. She had claimed that, while still under contract, she was sexually assaulted by an executive associated with the series. Later, in a public interview, she stated that Leonard Nimoy had been her main source of support during that time. She went into more details about the assault in her book The Longest Trek, but refused to name the executive, saying in the book, "This is my story, not his." Whitney returned to the Star Trek franchise in the 1970s after DeForest Kelley saw Whitney on the unemployment line and told her that fans had been asking for her at fan conventions. Whitney reprised her role as Janice Rand, who had received a promotion to chief petty officer in Star Trek: The Motion Picture). She also appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, with another promotion, as Lieutenant Commander Janice Rand. Five years later, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise, she returned in the 1996 Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", along with George Takei. She also reprised her role in two internet Star Trek episodes.

In the 1970s, she appeared in The Bold Ones, Cannon, and Hart to Hart. In 1998, she appeared in an episode of Diagnosis: Murder, which reunited her with her Star Trek colleagues George Takei, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett.

Movies for Grace Lee Whitney...

Bring Back... Star Trek
Title: Bring Back... Star Trek
Character: Self
Released: May 9, 2009
Type: Movie
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Title: Bring Back...
Character: Self
Released: May 10, 2005
Type: TV
Bring Back... is a British television series comprising one-off shows where Justin Lee Collins tries to locate people from music, TV or film backgrounds to reunite them for a one-off performance or get-together. The series was broadcast on Channel 4.
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Title: Star Trek: Voyager
Character: Commander Janice Rand
Released: January 16, 1995
Type: TV
Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is 75 years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home.
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Title: Diagnosis: Murder
Character: Encounter Group Abductee
Released: October 29, 1993
Type: TV
Dr. Mark Sloan is a good-natured, offbeat physician who is called upon to solve murders.
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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Title: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Character: Excelsior Communications Officer (Janice Rand)
Released: December 6, 1991
Type: Movie
After years of war, the Federation and the Klingon empire find themselves on the brink of a peace summit when a Klingon ship is nearly destroyed by an apparent attack from the Enterprise. Both worlds brace for what may be their deadliest encounter.
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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Character: Commander Rand
Released: November 26, 1986
Type: Movie
It's the 23rd century, and a mysterious alien power is threatening Earth by evaporating the oceans and destroying the atmosphere. In a frantic attempt to save mankind, Kirk and his crew must time travel back to 1986 San Francisco where they find a world of punk, pizza and exact-change buses that are as alien as anything they've ever encountered in the far reaches of the galaxy. A thrilling, action-packed Star Trek adventure!
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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Title: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Character: Commander Janice Rand (Woman in Cafeteria)
Released: June 1, 1984
Type: Movie
Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned Enterprise to return to the restricted Genesis planet to recover Spock's body.
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The Kid with the 200 I.Q.
Title: The Kid with the 200 I.Q.
Released: February 6, 1983
Type: Movie
A 13-year-old genius goes to college and tries to cope not only with campus social life, but also with his professor.
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Title: Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Character: CPO Janice Rand
Released: December 7, 1979
Type: Movie
When a destructive space entity is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral Kirk resumes command of the Starship Enterprise in order to intercept, examine, and hopefully stop it.
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Title: Hart to Hart
Released: September 22, 1979
Type: TV
Wealthy couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a self-made millionaire and his journalist wife, moonlight as amateur detectives.
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Title: Cannon
Released: September 14, 1971
Type: TV
Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976. The primary protagonist is the title character, private detective Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad. He also appeared on two episodes of Barnaby Jones. Cannon is the first Quinn Martin-produced series to be aired on a network other than ABC. A "revival" television film, The Return of Frank Cannon, was aired on November 1, 1980. In total, there were 124 episodes.
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Title: The Name of the Game
Character: Suzette
Released: September 20, 1968
Type: TV
The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The show had an extremely large budget for a television series.
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Title: The Outsider
Released: September 18, 1968
Type: TV
The Outsider was the story of David Ross, a go-it-alone private investigator who's always where the action is. Darren McGavin played Ross, a man living in an off-beat, always-dangerous world. The series aired for one season on NBC and was a precursor of sorts to The Rockford Files in that it featured a loner private detective who had previously done time in prison for a crime he didn't commit and who never quite fit into a rapidly changing environment.
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Way Down Cellar
Title: Way Down Cellar
Character: Velma
Released: January 7, 1968
Type: Movie
Three friends find a secret tunnel under the ruins of a church that leads them to the basement of a dilapidated house and, incidentally, a group of counterfeiters.
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Title: Mannix
Released: September 16, 1967
Type: TV
Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors. Mannix was the last series produced by Desilu Productions.
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Title: Cimarron Strip
Released: September 7, 1967
Type: TV
Cimarron Strip is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from September 1967 to March 1968. Starring Stuart Whitman as Marshal Jim Crown, the series was produced by the creators of Gunsmoke. Reruns of the original show were aired in the summer of 1971. Cimarron Strip was one of only three 90-minute weekly Western series that aired during the 1960s, and the only 90-minute series of any kind to be centered primarily around one lead character. Cimarron Strip was set in the Oklahoma Panhandle, which comprises, east to west, Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron counties in Oklahoma. The show is set in 1888, just as the continuous frontier of the West, which once ran from the Canadian to the Mexican border, was closing. In less than five years there would no longer be that "continuous frontier," only pockets of undeveloped land. This was the late "Wild West" that Marshall Jim Crown was called to defend.
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Ironside
Title: Ironside
Character: Stripper (uncredited)
Released: March 28, 1967
Type: Movie
Citizens of San Francisco are stunned by the news that Robert Ironside, the city's hard-nosed, tough-talking chief of detectives, has been shot and left for dead while vacationing at his friend the Police Commissioner's rural retreat. Ironside survives the murder attempt, but the bullet has damaged nerves in his spine, leaving him a paraplegic. Unable to gain reinstatement as chief of detectives, Ironside gets permission to continue investigating criminal cases as a citizen volunteer. With the assistance of two former protegees, Det. Sgt. Ed Brown and Officer Eve Whitfield, and a newly-hired aide/driver, Mark Sanger, Ironside sets out to solve his first case as a civilian by finding the people responsible for the attempt on his life.
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Title: Rango
Released: January 13, 1967
Type: TV
Rango is an American Western situation comedy starring comedian Tim Conway which was broadcast in the United States on the ABC television network in 1967. In Rango, Conway played an inept Texas Ranger who had been assigned to the quietest post the Rangers had, Deep Wells, so as to keep him from creating unnecessary trouble. The Rangers apparently had wanted him removed from the service altogether but were prevented from doing so by the fact that his father was their commander. But he seemed to bring his own trouble with him, as crime suddenly returned to a place that had seen very little of it the prior 20 years. Also appearing in Rango was the American Indian character Pink Cloud, an overly-assimilated Indian who was very fond of the ways of the whites and whose command of the English language was generally better than theirs. The theme song co-written by Earle Hagen and sung by Frankie Laine. The series ran for less than a year. TV Guide ranked the series number 47 on its TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time list in 2002.
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Title: Star Trek
Character: Yeoman Janice Rand
Released: September 8, 1966
Type: TV
Space. The Final Frontier. The U.S.S. Enterprise embarks on a five year mission to explore the galaxy. The Enterprise is under the command of Captain James T. Kirk with First Officer Mr. Spock, from the planet Vulcan. With a determined crew, the Enterprise encounters Klingons, Romulans, time paradoxes, tribbles and genetic supermen led by Khan Noonian Singh. Their mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before.
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Title: Batman
Character: Neila
Released: January 12, 1966
Type: TV
Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually crime fighting duo Batman and Robin. A secret Batpole in the Wayne mansion leads to the Batcave, where Police Commissioner Gordon often calls with the latest emergency threatening Gotham City. Racing to the scene of the crime in the Batmobile, Batman and Robin must (with the help of their trusty Bat-utility-belt) thwart the efforts of a variety of master criminals, including The Riddler, The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin.
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Title: The Big Valley
Character: Maggie
Released: September 15, 1965
Type: TV
The Big Valley is an American western television series which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969. The show stars Barbara Stanwyck, as the widow of a wealthy nineteenth century California rancher. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman, and produced by Levy-Gardner-Laven for Four Star Television.
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Title: Run for Your Life
Character: Millie
Released: September 13, 1965
Type: TV
Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.
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Title: Run for Your Life
Character: Billie
Released: September 13, 1965
Type: TV
Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.
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The Man from Galveston
Title: The Man from Galveston
Character: Texas Rose
Released: December 18, 1963
Type: Movie
Circuit-riding Texas lawyer Timothy Higgins defends a former girlfriend against a murder charge stemming from an extortionist's threat to reveal her shady past. Through adroit courtroom work, Higgins is able to acquit her and reveal who actually shot the fatal bullet.
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Title: Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
Released: October 4, 1963
Type: TV
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre is an American anthology series, sponsored by Chrysler Corporation, which ran on NBC from 1963 through 1967. The show was hosted by Bob Hope, but it had a variety of formats, including musical, dramatic, and comedy.
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Title: Temple Houston
Character: Tangerine O'Shea
Released: September 19, 1963
Type: TV
Temple Houston is a 1963–64 NBC television series which has been called "the first attempt . . . to produce an hour-long Western series with the main character being an attorney in the formal sense." It was the only show Jack Webb sold to a network during his ten months as the head of production at Warner Bros. Television. It was also the lone series in which actor Jeffrey Hunter played a regular part.
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Title: The Outer Limits
Character: Carla Duveen
Released: September 16, 1963
Type: TV
The Outer Limits is an anthology tv series of self-contained sci-fi-horror stories, sometimes with a plot twist at the end.
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Title: Arrest and Trial
Released: September 15, 1963
Type: TV
Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American crime/legal drama series that ran during the 1963-1964 season on ABC, airing Sundays from 8:30-10 p.m. Eastern.
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Title: Arrest and Trial
Character: Sally Burns
Released: September 15, 1963
Type: TV
Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American crime/legal drama series that ran during the 1963-1964 season on ABC, airing Sundays from 8:30-10 p.m. Eastern.
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Irma la Douce
Title: Irma la Douce
Character: Kiki
Released: June 5, 1963
Type: Movie
When a naive policeman falls in love with a prostitute, he doesn’t want her seeing other men and creates an alter ego who’s to be her only customer.
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Title: The Eleventh Hour
Character: Dawn
Released: October 3, 1962
Type: TV
The Eleventh Hour is an American medical drama about psychiatry starring Wendell Corey, Jack Ging, and Ralph Bellamy, which aired sixty-two new episodes plus selected rebroadcasts on NBC from October 3, 1962, to September 9, 1964.
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Title: The Virginian
Character: Nina
Released: September 19, 1962
Type: TV
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western.
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Title: The Virginian
Character: Heather
Released: September 19, 1962
Type: TV
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western.
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A Public Affair
Title: A Public Affair
Character: Tracey Phillips
Released: March 3, 1962
Type: Movie
Expository internal affairs drama which brings to light the often unprincipled tactics used in negative "smear" campaigning, and its effects within the political arena.
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Pocketful of Miracles
Title: Pocketful of Miracles
Character: Queenie's Broad (uncredited)
Released: December 18, 1961
Type: Movie
A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.
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Title: Surfside 6
Released: October 6, 1960
Type: TV
Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.
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Title: The Detectives
Released: October 16, 1959
Type: TV
The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons, and on NBC during its third and final season. The series, starring motion picture star Robert Taylor, was produced by Four Star Television.
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Title: The Detectives
Character: Susie
Released: October 16, 1959
Type: TV
The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons, and on NBC during its third and final season. The series, starring motion picture star Robert Taylor, was produced by Four Star Television.
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Title: The Untouchables
Character: Fran
Released: October 15, 1959
Type: TV
Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptible agents battle organized crime in 1930s Chicago.
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Some Like It Hot
Title: Some Like It Hot
Character: Rosella (uncredited)
Released: March 19, 1959
Type: Movie
Two musicians witness a mob hit and struggle to find a way out of the city before they are found by the gangsters. Their only opportunity is to join an all-girl band as they leave on a tour. To make their getaway they must first disguise themselves as women, then keep their identities secret and deal with the problems this brings - such as an attractive bandmate and a very determined suitor.
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Title: 77 Sunset Strip
Character: Natasha
Released: October 10, 1958
Type: TV
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their leggy secretary.
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Title: 77 Sunset Strip
Released: October 10, 1958
Type: TV
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their leggy secretary.
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Title: Bat Masterson
Character: Louise Talbot
Released: October 8, 1958
Type: TV
Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black-and-white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. The series was produced by Ziv Television Productions, the company responsible for such hit series as Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol.
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Title: The Rifleman
Released: September 30, 1958
Type: TV
The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. "The Rifleman" aired on ABC from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963 as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series to have a widowed parent raise a child.
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Title: The Walter Winchell File
Released: October 2, 1957
Type: TV
The Walter Winchell File is the title of a television crime drama series that initially aired from 1957 to 1958, dramatizing cases from the New York City Police Department that were covered in the New York Daily Mirror. The series featured columnist and announcer Walter Winchell, John Larch, George Cisar, Robert Anderson, Robert Brubaker, Dolores Donlon, and Gene Barry, a year before he was cast in the lead of NBC's Bat Masterson. Thirty-nine episodes were produced; the first twenty-six aired on ABC during the 1957-1958 season, and the final thirteen were seen in syndication in 1959. Among the guest stars was the child actor Dennis Holmes, who played 7-year-old Allie Marisch in the 1957 episode "Thou Shalt Not Kill."
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Title: Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Character: Ellen
Released: October 5, 1956
Type: TV
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.
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Title: Gunsmoke
Character: Pearl
Released: September 10, 1955
Type: TV
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
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Title: The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
Character: Saloon Girl (as Ruth Whitney)
Released: September 6, 1955
Type: TV
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a television western series loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black-and-white program aired for 229 episodes on ABC from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian in the title role.
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Top Banana
Title: Top Banana
Character: Miss Holland (uncredited)
Released: February 22, 1954
Type: Movie
Jerry Biffle is the star of the Blendo Soap Program. He has been invited to participate in an autograph-signing party for his new book at an important department store. Jerry meets Sally Peters, one of the department store models, and makes her part of his TV troupe. As part of his campaign to court Sally, Jerry gets Cliff Lane, the tenor of his TV company, to sing to her over the phone. When Sally and Cliff meet, they fall in love, with Biffle ignorant of the complications.
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Title: General Electric Theater
Character: Audrey Henderson
Released: February 1, 1953
Type: TV
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.
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Title: Death Valley Days
Character: Verna
Released: October 1, 1952
Type: TV
Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945 and continued from 1952 to 1970 as a syndicated television series, with reruns continuing through August 1, 1975. The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and hosted by Stanley Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, and Dale Robertson. With the passing of Dale Robertson in 2013, all the former Death Valley Days hosts are now deceased.
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The Texan Meets Calamity Jane
Title: The Texan Meets Calamity Jane
Character: Cecelia Mullen
Released: November 15, 1950
Type: Movie
A western in which Calamity Jane's rightful ownership of a gambling hall is challenged. She nearly loses the business to a shady crook, but Texas lawyer Ellison puts up a legal battle to help her stay in charge. After a sensational fight, the letters proving her right are discovered.
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To the Journey - Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager
Title: To the Journey - Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager
Character: self (archival)
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
The documentary explores the legacy of Star Trek: Voyager (1995).