Grace Lee Whitney (April 1, 1930 – May 1, 2015) was an American actress and singer. She was known for her role as Janice Rand on the original Star Trek television series and subsequent Star Trek television series and films.
Whitney was born Mary Ann Chase in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and 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 and where she opened in nightclubs for Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich, and toured with the Spike Jones and Fred Waring Bands.
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 said: "I was on diet pills trying to stay thin—and I was very thin. They wanted you to fit into the uniforms and I couldn't quite so I went on amphetamines." Whitney appeared in eight of the first thirteen 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."