Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, was literally the voice of Star Trek. For more than 40 years she provided the voice of the Starship Enterprise, on television and in the films, including the new one due out next year. She also played several characters, did much to promote her husband’s legacy, regularly attended fan conventions and was affectionately known as “The First Lady of Star Trek”.

She was second-in-command in the original pilot show, which was filmed in 1964, but was not broadcast at the time. NBC apparently balked at the idea of giving such an important role to the creator’s girlfriend. They did not care much for the alien with the pointy ears either, but they preferred him to the “pushy” female and Spock was promoted.

When NBC commissioned a series two years later she changed her name and put on a blonde wig to play the recurring role of Nurse Christine Chapel, who ironically is in love with Spock. She was Dr Chapel by the time the television series evolved into a film franchise in the late 1970s. Barrett Roddenberry played several other roles and provided the voice for other starships and computers in the various Star Trek spin-offs, including animation and computer games.

She was born Majel Leigh Hudec in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932, and began acting at school. She went to college with the intention of becoming a legal clerk, dropped out and landed roles in various theatre productions, ending up at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.

On Hollywood’s doorstep she was well placed to secure small roles in films and television and appeared in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957), The Buccaneer (1958) and The Untouchables (1960). She got to know Lucille Ball, signed a contract with her company Desilu and appeared in The Lucy Show (1962). Hudec and Roddenberry met on the series The Lieutenant (1964), on which he was a producer. Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on Star Trek, appeared in the same episode.

Roddenberry had been working on his concept of “Wagon Train to the stars” for several years and Hudec played a character called Number One in the original pilot entitled The Cage. It would be another two years before the pilot was reworked into the original series, which was made by Desilu Productions for NBC, with M. Leigh Hudec now Majel Barrett.

Star Trek was different from other sci-fi series that focussed on hi-tech weaponery and space monsters. Star Trek tackled contemporary social issues in the guise of sci-fi. However it famously flopped on initial transmission and it took a great deal of effort to persuade NBC to keep it going for three seasons.

Roddenberry was still married to his first wife when he was working on the original series. He and Barrett married in a Buddhist-Shinto ceremony in Japan in August 1969, shortly after Star Trek finished its initial run in the US. However his divorce had not been finalised, so they remarried in the US a few months later.

Barrett Roddenberry had continued acting in other projects as well, appearing in A Guide for the Married Man (1967) and Westworld (1973).

Star Trek picked up converts when stations broadcast repeats in the early 1970s and acquired a new audience on video and subsequently DVD. It is now arguably the single most successful TV series ever, spawning feature films, spin-off TV series, books, comics and other merchandise.

The screen spin-offs began with an animated series in the mid-1970s, for which Barrett Roddenberry voiced several characters. Then came the major TV spin-offs and for a decade she made irregular appearances as the flamboyant alien ambassador Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1993) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-96). The official Roddenberry site claimed she was “the only actor to have contributed to every facet of the Star Trek phenomenon”.

Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, but his widow brought several unrealised projects to term, serving as producer on the TV series Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002) and Andromeda (2000-2005). She parodied her role as the voice of a space computer on an episode of Family Guy (2001) and was in demand for other voice work too. She was even hired by the Union Pacific Railroad to voice warning messages to train crews when a fault occurred. She is survived by their son Eugene.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, actress and wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, was born on February 23, 1932. She died of leukaemia on December 18, 2008, aged 76