The Ladies of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Diana Muldaur as Doctor (Commander) Katherine Pulaski

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Doctor (Commander) Katherine Pulaski was the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D during the second television season.  Doctor Beverly Crusher had departed to head Starfleet Medical for a year.  She was the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Repulse, under Captain Taggart in 2364, and transferred to the USS Enterprise in 2365.  Ship's Counselor, Lieutenant Commander Deanna Troi, describes Doctor Pulaski as caustic and stubborn, but dedicated and highly skilled.  Doctor Pulaski was a long-time admirer of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and she put in for assingment to the Enterprise immediately that she learned of Doctor Crusher's departure.  Captain Taggart formally reported his regret at losing her.   Doctor Pulaski's skills as a physician were called upon almost immediately that she arrived on board the USS Enterprise.  Counselor Deanna Troi was impregnated during her sleep by an alien non-corporeal life form and the resulting pregnancy and subsequent birth of the child, Ian Andrew Troi, took only a few days (The Child).   She initially showed high resistance to accepting Lieutenant Commander Data as a sentient being, but later came to regard him with respect, and even admiration.  She distrusted the transporter intensely used shuttles when possible.  Doctor Pulaski has shown an inability to complete long-term intimate relationships.  She has been married and divorced three times during a 12-year period immediately following an intense affair with Federation civilian attache Kyle Riker in 2353 near the Tholian border.   Kyle Riker is, incidentally, First Officer Commander William Riker's father.   She turned down his proposal of marriage, but remained on good terms with him as well as all three of her ex-husbands.  Katherine Pulaski's professional passion almost proved fatal when she contracted a hyperaging disease at an experimental genetics station and would have died if not for transporter technology (Unnatural Selection).  The Maraposans kidnapped her and Commander William Riker for cloning cells, but they destroyed the immature clones (Up the Long Ladder).   Doctor Pulaski demonstrated during her brief stay that she could hold her own in a game of poker.  She also demonstrated interests in galactic literature, including Klingon literature and cutlure.  One of Doctor Pulaski's earlier works, "Linear Models of Viral Propagation," is still used as a standard, she is well known to many in the medical field.  Her medical accomplishments include  operations to successfully connect an artificial eye to a regenerated optic nerve, curing birth-blindness such as that of  Lieutenat Geordi LaForge.  Her skills as a heart surgeon and biomolecular physiologist were needed on Starbase 515, when she was called in to save Captain Picard's defective artificial heart (Samaritan Snare).

See Some Photos of Katherine Pulaski

Diana Muldaur's relationship with Star Trek could be likened to an old friend who has just recently married into the family.  She journeyed with the USS Enterprise's original crew as Doctor Miranda Jones in the episode, Is There In Truth No Beauty? and as Doctor Anne Mulhall in Return To Tomorrow.  Now, as Dr. Kate Pulaski, she joins the new crew of the Starship Enterprise for the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It's been an exciting adventure returning to Star Trek after so many years and she's looking forward to a long and happy voyage.   "I knew all about the original Star Trek because I did two episodes of that show," Diana says, "but I didn't know that much about this new series when I was first contacted for it.  We couldn't get Star Trek: The Next Generation up in the mountains where I lived.  I asked to see some of the shows and then I was fascinated and asked for more.  I think they sent me fifteen tapes of last season's episodes.  I just think it got more and more wonderful and better and better.  It had an exciting repertory company and it became something that I thought I could be very happy living with, which is not easy for me.  I'm very tough on whether it's something that I can live with and enjoy over a period of time or not."  Professional credentials aside, Diana enjoys discussing more of the personal characteristics of Kate Pulaski.  "She's crusty," she says with a laugh.  "She's a strong person on the outside but not tough.  I don't see her as tough.  I see her as very opinionated and she does terrible things like interrupt people all the time, which I also do.  I had to laugh recently because in the last script I read, the writers picked up on this and had me doing it in the episode.   And I love that because I do that all the time!  You know, I spent the first thirty years of my life never opening my mouth and now I never shut it!  I'm always jumping in and finishing people's sentences.  But Kate is a warm person and I want to see more warmth.  I also think she has a wonderful sense of humor.  I think she also is very much a woman and probably had some wonderful times and wonderful relationships," Diana continues.  "In our series' bible it says she has had three children by three different men.  She likes men!  I think the joy of her is that she respects and likes men.  "I think we showed a little bit of her personality in Elementary, Dear Data", she relates. "There is a little hint of where she's going and who she is.  The last episode I just shot, Unnatural Selection, had a lot of her in it.   There's not a lot of humor but a lot of everything else.  Each show, we have put a little here or grabbed a little snippet there and put it in.  Of course, when one thinks of the medical side of Star Trek, the most recognizable figure would be that of Doctor "Bones" McCoy.  Now with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Doctor Kate Pulaski will also share the distinction as a futuristic healer.  But what, in Diana Muldaur's opinion, are the similarities and differences between these two Enterprise physicians?  "It's difficult for me to compare," the actress states.  "In other words, I can't study his character to do my character.  I have to do mine as only I could do it and somebody else would do it as only they could do it.  So it's hard to draw the comparisons.   I’ve seen DeForest Kelley twice already since he's shooting Star Trek V: The Final Frontier here at the studio and we've had some good talks.   He's very pleased I’m doing it and I'm very pleased that he's very pleased," she says smiling.  "He told me, 'Who would've guessed years ago when you did the show that you would be back here again?'  And he's right, I never would've guessed it!"  Portraying a doctor on Star Trek: The Next Generation wasn't a complete stretch; after all, Diana has performed as a doctor several times in her acting career already.  So how does Diana explain it?   "Well, I think it's because I have a strength that comes out," she contends, "and they assume that I can realistically portray a doctor.  Maybe it's also because I honestly have a real interest in medicine as well.  I always have."  As far as the future of medicine is concerned, Diana feels we will continue to move away from simply treating those people who are obviously sick or injured to treating people so that many illnesses can be avoided.  "I think we are going to hopefully see a lot of preventive medicine as opposed to after-the-fact medicine.   People will be stronger and live longer and have incredible insights and use of sixth-sense and so on.  And, hopefully, a great deal of it is what we're seeing on Star Trek but l think it will basically be preventive medicine."  The future, in Diana's opinion, can be as bright as we choose to make it.  Even the past, at least for Diana, has been quite good.  She has always had steady work in an extremely competitive profession.  One of the first things Diana Muldaur did when she moved to California was step into the future where she encountered the original Starship Enterprise. Diana remembers what the future was like more than twenty years ago.   "It's funny," she says, "because the thing I remember most about the original show was that we broke everyday at 6:12!  Paramount in those days stopped all their shooting at 6:12 in the evening.  I also remember having wonderful lunches at Nickodells with all the cast.  Another thing I remember was how fascinating the wardrobe department was and throwing all these things together and creating all these costumes in a flurry.  It was all very vivid to me in those days because I was new out here and all my impressions were new and exciting, and both roles I played on the original series were wonderful.  They were both good, meaty parts that you could put your hooks into and have a lot of fun with.  The joy of this show is the imagination and creativity involved with it.  And you're restricted with everything else made for television.  You are totally restricted as to how far your part can go, but there are no restrictions on this show.  You can go anywhere, any galaxy, create people and things and bring them to life.  It's very exciting.  You can't do that on your everyday cop show.  "I'm just astonished by Gene Roddenberry," she continues.  "I, of course, met him a couple of times when I did the original series.  I then got to know him a little bit better doing The Planet Earth, which was a pilot that I guest-starred in.  I respect the guts that he had to not give in and not sacrifice his belief and not sell out, which is a very easy thing to do in this town.  Mr. Roddenberry never did, and he was able to bring Star Trek back this many years later on his own terms.  I think it's probably the most wonderful thing that's happened to television, I really do.  And it's still his vision and one can only hope to begin to come up to the standard of his vision."   Diana says she never planned to become an actress, even though she started doing summer stock theatre at fifteen.  She went to college intending to study art history, but she soon switched majors and graduated with a degree in drama.  "What happened to me was I fell in love with the theater.  I just couldn't believe the magic of it and so I studied all aspects of it.  I painted sets, worked in the office and acted.  I covered all of it because that's what fascinated me.  Then I found out I happened to be good at acting and that it was very easy for me.  Acting was magic to me and I loved performing."  The first professional link to acting was with APA, a theater group based in New York and New Jersey; one that performed the classics.  She earned twenty-five dollars a week doing The Balcony at the Circle and the Square Theatre, her first Off-Broadway play.  Diana appeared on Broadway in Seidman & Son, with Sam Levine, Poor Bitos, with Donald Pleasance, and a something called A Very Rich Woman. She was not yet ready to leave the theater completely, but Diana became fascinated with the film industry and she began to commute to the west coast and still perform in in plays on the east coast.  Diana has accrued an impressive list of film credits since then.  She appeared in filmssuch as The Swimmer, with Burt Lancaster, McQ, with John Wayne, Number One, with CharIron Heston, and One More Train to Rob, with George Peppard.   Appearances on television include The Survivors, with Lana Turner, and McCIoud, opposite Dennis Weaver.  She had a recurring role in The Tony Randall Show as well as the series Born Free, and that took her to Africa for a year.  Diana served on the board of the Screen Actors Guild and was, aside from acting, the first woman to hold the prestigious position of President of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  She also pursues interests as far removed from the world of entertainment as the east coast is from the west coast.   Diana prefers to enjoy the great outdoors in her spare time.  "I love to sail," she says.  "I've sailed all my life and it gives me great peace.   I adore it and I sail any size ship.  I also ski in the mountains whenever I can and I hike in the wilderness and I fish.  I've fished all over the world for every size fish.  I raise Airedale Terriers and I think some of the best in the world!  I show them and I have two out being shown right now.  And those two are close to being champions.  I have about thirty champion Airedales.  I have probably the top three stud dogs in America.  I've been doing this for ten years so I'm very careful.  They are the most wonderful creatures.  I adore them."   Diana Muldaur is a woman who has what many people consider a good life.  She has managed to make a good living in entertainment and, at the same time, Diana has had the opportunity to pursue many of her personal interests.  Is there any personal philosophy Diana lives by concerning life in general?  "I would say that basically I believe in people.  I'm fascinated by people and I have been all my life.   I suppose that's really why I am an actress and why it comes to me easily.  I have a real interest in the human race.  I don't know whether I have a philosophy other than that we have to help one another and we all need each other."  Her philosophy of needing people and helping them is similar to the philosophy of Star Trek.  "Whether we choose to believe it or not, we as individuals are all part of a large extended family.  And in order for our family to survive, we all have to know that we can depend on each other just as the family aboard the Enterprise does."   She believes the depiction of this future gives hope for our own future, and is also one of the primary reasons that Star Trek continues to survive.  "I think the show depicts faith in the future and hope for mankind," she says.  She also says with a smile, "I think that's why Star Trek will continue for years to come."

See Some Photos of Diana Muldaur

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