Actress Teri Garr, who began her career as a background go-go dancer in such 60s cinematic classics as Pajama Party and Clambake, got her big break with “Assignment: Earth.” However, she hesitates to discuss her time on Star Trek to this day. 

The reason: the skirt she wore. 

According to Herb Solow and Robert Justman’s Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, the costume designed by William Ware Theiss for Garr’s Roberta Lincoln was originally more modest. It was, after all, supposed to be our introduction to a character that would co-star in the Gary Seven spinoff.

However, Gene Roddenberry, perhaps fearing that the show wouldn’t come back for a third season, was more hands-on than usual with the production. One of the things he was focused on: Roberta’s skirt. The Star Trek creator was repeatedly insistent that the hemline be raised, and what began as a thoroughly modern miniskirt became what amounted to a micro. 

In her autobiography Speedbumps: Floor It Through Hollywood, the actress was circumspect about the whole situation, only writing the following about filming the role that got her career off the ground floor:

In Assignment: Earth Kirk and Spock travel back to Earth in the ‘60s in order to prevent World War III. I played Roberta Lincoln, a dippy secretary in a pink and orange costume in a very short skirt. Had the spin-off succeeded, I would have continued on as an earthling agent, working to preserve humanity. In a very short skirt. But it was not to be.