Today in Star Trek history: Gates McFadden is born

Gates McFadden turns 73 today

MARCH 2, 2022 - She’s an actor, a dancer, and a 24th century doctor. Gates McFadden was born on this date in 1949.

Cheryl Gates McFadden, a native of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, attended Brandeis University, graduating with a BA in theater arts. After graduation, she moved to Paris, France to continue her training as an actor with Jacques Lecoq, a movement coach best known for teaching “physical theatre,” that is, a method of storytelling primarily utilizing physical movement. This training, coupled with McFadden’s natural grace, led to her working with The Jim Henson Company, choreographing the films Labyrinth and The Muppets Take Manhattan.

McFadden appared in a film entitled When Nature Calls, a third season episode of The Cosby Show, and, later, The Hunt For Red October, although all but one of her scenes in that film ended up on the cutting room floor. But, of course, the role for which she is best known is that of Beverly Crusher, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation. When the character of Beverly Crusher was first created, a memo was sent to all the major talent agencies, with a description of Beverly that read thus:

She serves as the chief medical officer on the Enterprise. If it were not for her intelligence, personality, beauty and the fact that she has a natural walk of a striptease queen, Capt. Picard might not have agreed to her request that Leslie observe bridge activities…

Doctor Crusher’s character was originally conceived to mainly be a love interest to Picard and a single mother to a brilliant teenaged girl named Leslie. It was only by the time the final writers’ guide was written that she even rated a page of background notes of her own. The single mother aspect remained, the romantic prospects for her and Picard continued, albeit less front-and-center than had originally been conceived, and the striptease walk was, thankfully, jettisoned altogether. Oh, and her daughter Leslie was now a son, Wesley.

McFadden happened to be in Los Angeles, on her way to the airport, when her agent called, begging her to go to Paramount for an audition. Intrigued, she went, met TNG’s producers and was told she could audition for any of the women’s roles she chose.

“I thought it was a big step forward for women in command positions,” she said in a recent interview for the documentary The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek. She was intrigued, too, by the story potential for a single mother serving aboard a starship, and so she read for (and landed) the role of Doctor Crusher.

The first season of TNG was a troubled one for everyone without exception. Maurice Hurley, head writer for the series, has been described as a “very sexist” “old-school, tiger-chomping TV writer” who “wrote women in lazy, tropey ways.” McFadden felt it was her responsibility to speak up for her character and admits that she wasn’t very diplomatic about it. By the end of TNG’s first season, Hurley gave an ultimatum: “Either [Gates] goes or I go.” So Gates, unfortunately, went.

She was replaced in season two by Diana Muldaur, a fine actress, who had appeared in two episodes of The Original Series. She says she knew from day one that her character wouldn’t be sticking around and she also says that she wouldn’t have stayed, even if she’d been asked. “May I ask why?” she is asked in The Center Seat, to which she simply replies, “No.”

At the end of season two, Maurice Hurley left the show and McFadden was brought back to trek through the stars for five more seasons and 4 films. After TNG’s final episode, co-starred with John de Lancie in the film Taking Care of Business. She also took to the stage in a limited tour of Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Colm Meaney and she starred in the television series Marker.

McFadden has also taught at several universities across the US and has been an adjunct faculty member of the University of Southern California. from 2009 - 2014, she was the Artistic Director for Ensemble Theatre/Los Angeles, at which time she spearheaded the building of a new two-theater space called the Atwater Village Theatre Collective.

In her past, McFadden has been stalked, so did not attend Star Trek conventions for years, but in 2014 she agreed to attend New York Comic Con. She enjoyed the experience so much that she has become an enthusiastic convention attendee.

Since May of 2021, McFadden has hosted the podcast Gates McFadden InvestiGates: Who Do You Think You Are?, an entertaining affair where she interviews her fellow Trek alumni, and narrated the History Channel docuseries, The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek. There has been speculation among fans that McFadden will be reprising her role as Doctor Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: Picard, either in its third season or in the upcoming second season, which premiers tomorrow. There’s been no official comment on the possibility, one way or the other, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, please raise a glass with us here at Daily Star Trek News and wish Gates McFadden a very happy 73rd birthday.