"Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Janice Rand in the original "Star Trek" series and a handful of movies based on the series, died Friday at her home in Coarsegold, California. She was 85.

Her death was confirmed by the Madera County, California, Sheriff's Department.

On the official "Star Trek" website, startrek.com, Whitney was described as "one of 'Star Trek's' greatest cautionary tales and also one of the franchise's most satisfying renaissance stories." She was written out of the show in its first season and struggled with alcohol and drug problems before finding recovery, reprising the Rand role in the "Star Trek" films and devoting her life to helping others.

[snip]

She lasted just eight episodes on "Trek" before being let go.

Her forced departure started a spiral that took years to overcome.

"I just about killed myself over that reject. And when I would go on interviews, I would smell of alcohol. I was very Lindsay Lohan-ish, very Charlie Sheen. I was lost. I was lost and I began to bottom out," she told startrek.com in 2011. "It took me about 10 years after getting written out to come to my senses when I bottomed out."

She eventually got help while on Los Angeles' Skid Row, getting into a 12-step program. It turned her life around. (Among her supporters: Leonard Nimoy, "Trek's" Spock, who had his own battles with alcohol.)

"Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry put her in the movies, just going into production, and she appeared in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," as well as the third, fourth and sixth entries in the series. She later appeared on the TV series "Star Trek: Voyager." By that point, she'd been promoted to Commander Janice Rand.

But by then her focus was on helping others with substance abuse problems. She devoted more than three decades to that work, going public with her own addiction at a "Trek" convention."

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/04/entert...trek/index.html

Her departure from the original Star Trek has always been the stuff of rumor, conjecture, and mystery, including an accusation of her being raped by a top Star Trek exec, and insider favoritism. Whatever the truth I am glad she found happiness and may she RIP.