Denise Michelle Crosby is an American actress best known for portraying Security Chief Tasha
Yar in Season One of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as Yar's own daughter, the half-Romulan
Commander Sela, in subsequent seasons.
She is also known for her numerous film and television roles and for starring in and producing
the film Trekkies.
She is the paternal granddaughter of entertainer Bing Crosby.
Early life Crosby was born in Hollywood, California,
the illegitimate daughter of Marilyn Scott and actor Dennis Crosby.
Since she was born out of wedlock, her mother pursued a sensational, three-year-long lawsuit
against her father, at the conclusion of which he was ordered to pay child support and legal
fees.
This deeply embarrassed Dennis Crosby and his famous father, the actor and singer Bing
Crosby.
Although Bing died when his granddaughter was 19, the two reportedly never met.
Crosby attended LeConte Junior High School with actress Rita Wilson, followed by Hollywood
High School and Cabrillo College, where she studied theater.
She dropped out of college after she was interviewed by a local paper and revealed her famous family
background.
"One of the drama teachers used the story to illustrate to the class that this crap
is what Hollywood's all about, using people's names to get somewhere.
I was very, very hurt by it.
So I just checked out."
She started modeling and in 1979 posed nude for Playboy magazine, which she called "some
kind of rebellion on my part, some way of saying screw you to the family image."
Career Crosby's first high-profile role was as Lisa
Davis on the soap opera Days of our Lives.
She has appeared as Dr. Gretchen Kelly in three episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures
of Superman, and as a sheriff on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. episode "No Man's Land".
In the early 1990s, she played the role of the mayor in the short-lived series Key West.
She also appeared in two episodes of the cable television series Red Shoe Diaries, playing
a different character in each episode.
Crosby had a small recurring role in Aaron Spelling's prime time drama, Models Inc, a
spin-off from Melrose Place.
She was a guest star on the eighth season of The X-Files for two episodes, in which
she plays a doctor who took examinations of Agent Scully's baby.
In 1991, she was a guest star in "The Deadly Nightshade", a first season The Flash episode
as Dr. Rebecca Frost.
In 2006, she was a guest star in Dexter as Dexter's first victim.
Crosby had a recurring role in Southland as Detective Dan "Sal" Salinger's wife.
One of her very first film appearances was in the 1982 Nick Nolte/Eddie Murphy film 48
Hrs.
In 1986, she played a robotics engineer, Nora Hunter, in the science fiction movie Eliminators,
the leading role in the film Dolly Dearest in 1992, appeared in Stephen King's Pet Sematary
and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.
She starred in the 2002 western horror film Legend of the Phantom Rider.
Crosby starred in the Tobe Hooper horror film Mortuary.
She also appeared in the 1998 movie Deep Impact starring Elijah Wood.
Star Trek
In 1987, Crosby was cast in the role of Tasha Yar for the much publicized return of Star
Trek to television in the syndicated series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
She had been chosen to play Counsellor Deanna Troi before Gene Roddenberry switched the
roles that she and Marina Sirtis had initially been given.
Initially one of the top-billed characters and featured prominently in episodes such
as "The Naked Now" and "Code of Honor", the role of Tasha gradually moved into the background
as other members of the ensemble cast became a greater focus of the series.
It has been reported that Crosby grew disillusioned with her role because of its "Uhura-like"
status: "I was struggling with not being able to do much with the character.
I had all these ideas and couldn't do them.
I was just stage dressing."
Ultimately, Crosby decided to leave the show.
Her character was killed by the alien creature Armus during the episode "Skin of Evil."
She had appeared in 22 episodes when she left.
In later years, Crosby approached the TNG production team with the idea of reprising
her role of Tasha Yar.
This came to be in season three's "Yesterday's Enterprise" in which an alternate timeline
is created after the USS Enterprise-C, the predecessor to TNG's USS Enterprise-D, comes
forward 22 years in time.
Yar joined the Enterprise-C before it returned to its own time.
During the documentary Trekkies, Crosby commented that her Tasha Yar character had to die in
order to get "the best episodes".
Crosby also guest starred in several other TNG episodes such as "Redemption" as Romulan
Commander Sela, the half-human, half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar, who had been taken
prisoner in the past while on board the Enterprise-C. Crosby later reprised the role in the Star
Trek: Armada video game, and again in the series finale, "All Good Things...", in which
Captain Picard is moving back and forth through time, and encounters Tasha during the events
just prior to the pilot episode.
Crosby produced and narrated the 1997 documentary Trekkies, followed by the 2003 sequel Trekkies
2.
Both films star Crosby, who conducts interviews with devotees of Star Trek, more commonly
known as "Trekkies."
Along with other Star Trek actors, she has also appeared as Dr. Jenna Yar in the fan
produced series Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II.
Post-Star Trek work In January and February 2010, Crosby performed
alongside Gale Harold and ex-model Claudia Mason in Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending
at Theater in Los Angeles.
The production and cast received mostly positive reviews in the Los Angeles Times stating,
"Harold, ideally cast, beautifully ignites with Crosby, whose unconventional interpretation
is an affecting revelation."
Crosby has a recurring role on Showtime's 2013 series Ray Donovan.
She also currently portrays Mary in AMC's The Walking Dead.
The character first appears in the penultimate episode of Season 4.
Personal life Crosby was married to Geoffrey Edwards from
1983 to 1990.
She appeared in a few of Blake Edwards's films, including 10, Skin Deep, Trail of the Pink
Panther, and Curse of the Pink Panther.
Crosby is currently married to Ken Sylk.
They have one son, August William Sylk.
See also List of people in Playboy 1980-1989
References
External links Denise Crosby at the Internet Movie Database
Denise Crosby at AllMovie DeniseCrosby.net