Crew Profile: Dr Crusher

The astonishing story of theatrical fights, Muppets, and the Enterprise-D's most famous doctor and mother

Of all the cast members on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the toughest one to piece together a history for has been Gates McFadden. That’s because despite a lot of widely circulated anecdotes and claims, when you dig into these stories, many of them seem to vanish like a mirage when you get close to them. Take as a starting point the seemingly trivial question of when Gates McFadden was born. Paramount Studios widely reported she was born on 28th August 1953. But she graduated Brandeis University in 1970, which would be quite the achievement since she would have been seventeen year’s old if that date was correct!

It turns out that ‘Cheryl G. McFadden’ was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on 28th August 1949. McFadden has more lately confessed to concealing her birthdate, and making up dates in general, claiming she’s uncomfortable with her age. Indeed, there’s a great deal of mystery about McFadden’s career. You may have heard, for instance, that she was a choreographer for The Muppets Take Manhattan. She wasn’t. Or at least, didn’t get a credit for any choreography in that movie. But she did serve as a choreographer for Jim Henson twice… just not on that movie.

McFadden with Kermit and Miss Piggy during the shooting of The Muppets Take Manhattan, for which she was an actor

The mysteries abound. It is often claimed that McFadden was the only member of the core cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation to never have appeared at a fan convention until she eventually overcame her fears and went. Yet she was on a Star Trek panel in 1994 at the San Diego Comic-con, the official Star Trek convention in 1995 and 1998, DragonCon in 1999 and 2001, and Star Trek Las Vegas in 2002 and 2003. The list goes on - 113 confirmed guest appearances at conventions, which is fifty percent more than Michael Dorn, twice as many as LeVar Burton, and four times as many as Patrick Stewart.

What’s going on…? Honestly, I don’t know what to tell you! So perhaps we can start with the weird and wonderful fact that she can ride a unicycle, as this snapshot taken on the Paramount lots during the filming of TNG confirms!

When it comes to Gates McFadden, her career is stranger than fiction…