Denise Crosby

Denise Michelle Crosby is an American actress and model known for portraying Security Chief Tasha Yar mainly in season one of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Yar’s 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.
Denise Michelle Crosby was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Marilyn Scott and actor Dennis Crosby (after whom she was named). Her unmarried mother was forced to fight a sensational, three-year-long lawsuit against her father, at the conclusion of which Dennis was ordered to pay child support and legal fees. The case was brought to attempt to cancel the $80 per week in child support that Dennis was paying to Scott. This deeply embarrassed Dennis and his father, actor and singer Bing Crosby. Although Crosby was 19 when her grandfather died, she had never met him.[1]

Crosby graduated in 1975 from Hollywood High School, followed by 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 the March issue of Playboy magazine, which she called “some kind of rebellion on my part, some way of saying screw you to the family image”