Lieutenant Natasha "Tasha" Yar, played by Denise Crosby, is a character in Star Trek: The Next Generation.^[1] In the fictional series, the character served as chief of security aboard the USS Enterprise-D for the first season.^[1]

Crosby left the series near the end of first season, but reprised the role in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "All Good Things...".^[1]

Development and casting[link]

Inspired by the character of Vasquez in Aliens,^[2] the character was originally to be named "Macha Hernandez".^[3][2] The producers considered Jenette Goldstein, who had played Vasquez, for the role,^[4] but Dorothy Fontana pointed out that the actress "is not Latina. She is petite, blue-eyed, freckle-faced",^[5] and Marina Sirtis was cast as Yar.^[4] At that time, Denise Crosby was cast as Deanna Troi,^[6] but she and Sirtis switched roles before production began.^[4][7]

Story overview[link]

The back story for the character states that Natasha (Tasha) Yar (Ukrainian: Наташа "Таша" Яр), of Ukrainian descent, was born on Turkana IV, a colony that fell into chaos and eventually severed ties to the United Federation of Planets.^[1] Tasha learned to defend herself on the streets and avoid rape gangs.^[1] She left Turkana IV at age 15, leaving her younger sister Ishara behind, and later attended Starfleet Academy.^[1]

After watching Yar cross a minefield to save a colonist, Jean-Luc Picard requested that she be assigned to his next command.^[1] She later became chief of security and chief tactical officer aboard the USS Enterprise-D, some time prior to the beginning of the series.^[1]

Armus kills Yar on Vagra II as a demonstration of his power in "Skin of Evil"^[1] while Yar is attempting to rescue Deanna Troi. Worf replaces her as chief tactical and security officer.^[1]

In "Yesterday's Enterprise", the USS Enterprise-C travels into the future in the midst of defending a Klingon colony from Romulan attack, creating an alternate timeline in which the Federation and Klingon Empire are at war, and in which Yar does not die on Vagra II.^[1] Learning from Guinan that she dies a senseless death in the normal timeline, Yar opts to return to the past aboard the Enterprise-C, thus creating another new timeline. She is then taken prisoner along with a few others and ordered to be executed by the Romulan Star Empire. A Romulan General becomes enamored when he sees her, and he strikes a deal in which Tasha would be his consort in exchange for the lives of her fellow survivors. Sela, (pronounced see-la) her daughter, is born a year later. One night, when Sela is 4 years old, Tasha attempts to escape with her, but Sela cries out and Tasha is then caught and executed. The adult Sela appears in two 2-part episodes of the series (including the Season 4 cliffhanger finale where she is first revealed), and is also played by Denise Crosby.

Yar's final appearance is in scenes that take place in the series's finale, "All Good Things...". Her scenes are mostly what happened in times other than shown in the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint"; the story diverges from the "normal" time-frame as events in the finale occur.^[1]

The audience is made aware of Yar's death on three different occasions. First she is killed by Armus. The second time, Sela informs the crew that Yar was executed after a failed attempt to escape from the Romulans. Then in the series's finale, "All Good Things...", we again see Yar die as the Enterprise is destroyed inside an anomaly.

Tasha and the android Lt. Commander Data have a sexual encounter with each other in the episode "The Naked Now". After this, Data keeps a hologram of Tasha with him, and during the trial regarding his rights in the second season's episode "The Measure of a Man," he publicly admits to the incident with the words "We were intimate."

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Star Trek: The Next Generation

• Natasha Yar at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Look up yar in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Yar may refer to:

Rivers

• Western Yar, Isle of Wight, England
• Eastern Yar, Isle of Wight, England
• River Yare, in East Anglia, England

In Russia:

• Yar, Russia, name of several inhabited localities in Russia

In fiction:

• Tasha Yar, a fictional character on Star Trek: The Next Generation
• The hero in the video game Yars' Revenge

Other uses:

• Yar (gene), a long non-coding RNA gene found in Drosophila

See also[link]

• Babi Yar, a ravine in Kiev where mass murders took place during World War II
• YARS, an enzyme in humans encoded by the YARS gene
• All pages with titles containing "yar"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since July 2008. It relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Tagged since July 2008.

Denise Crosby
Denise Crosby in 2003
Born	Denise Michelle Crosby (1957-11-24) November 24, 1957 (age 54) Hollywood, California, USA
Years active	1979 – present
Spouse	Geoffrey Edwards (m. 1983–1990) «start: (1983)–end+1: (1991)»"Marriage: Geoffrey Edwards to Denise Crosby" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Denise_Crosby)(divorced) Ken Sylk (m. 1995) «start: (1995)»"Marriage: Ken Sylk to Denise Crosby" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Denise_Crosby)
Website
www.denisecrosby.net

Denise Michelle Crosby (born November 24, 1957) is an American actress best known for portraying Security Chief Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She is also known for her numerous film and television roles, for starring in and producing the film Trekkies. She is the granddaughter of the late entertainer Bing Crosby.

Early life[link]

Crosby was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Marilyn Scott and actor Dennis Crosby. Her paternal grandfather was actor/singer/comedian Bing Crosby.^[1] She attended LeConte Junior High School with actress Rita Wilson (wife of Tom Hanks).^[2] Her choice of career solidified at an early age and was influenced by the involvement of other family members in show business.

Career[link]

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 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Star Trek

Crosby at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, June 8, 2008.

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."^[3] Ultimately, Crosby decided to leave the show. Her character was unceremoniously 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 had second thoughts about leaving the show, and 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.

Tasha Yar was also featured in the final episode of the series entitled "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 (grandmother of Natasha Yar) in the fan produced series Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II.

[edit] Post-Star Trek work

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Following her appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation, nude photos of Crosby that originally appeared in the March 1979 edition of Playboy magazine were republished in the May 1988 issue. In the pictorial, Crosby was featured as a new-wave model, with the additional angle of being the granddaughter of the legendary Bing Crosby.

Crosby appeared in Chris Isaak's first music video, "Dancin'". In 1986, she appeared in a music video for Black Sabbath's "No Stranger to Love".

In January and February 2010, Crosby performed alongside Gale Harold and ex-model Claudia Mason in Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at Theater/Theatre 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."^[4]

Personal life[link]

Crosby was married to Geoffrey Edwards (son of director Blake 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 a son, August William Sylk.^[1]

See also[link]

• List of people in Playboy 1980-1989

References[link]

External links[link]

• Denise Crosby at the Internet Movie Database
• Denise Crosby at AllRovi
• Denise Crosby at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• DeniseCrosby.net