Character Insight No. 337: The roles of Cameron

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review another actress who played multiple roles on Star Trek, that being Cameron.

https://archive.org/details/characterinsightep337

Cameron is the stage name for Roberta Jean Oppenheimer. Not much is known of her pre-Hollywood background, although we know as a child she always dreamed of being a stage star, leading to her move to Las Vegas to appear in several stage shows. Most of her television and movie appearances came in the 1990's. Some of this work was as a stand-in, but she also earned some significant screen time as a background character in Trek.

Her most notable recurring role was as Ensign Kellogg on Picard's Enterprise. She appears in over 40 episodes over the final four seasons of the show, with further appearances in the movies Generations and First Contact. She was only identified by name in the episode The Drumhead, and her appearances are usually in the mess hall or as a security officer.

As a stand-in, she served as one of the Beverly Crusher stand ins over her four years on the show, and she also worked a little as a stand-in for Seven of Nine when that character was first added to Voyager. She was replaced in latter seasons of Voyager in this role, but this was near the end of her short acting career in TV.

As for other bit roles in Trek, Cameron ran the gamut through the alien races of the show. She played a Klingon aide to Gowron in TNG, a Cardassian officer in another TNG episode, a Prytt guard and a human unnamed officer on Voyager. She also participated in many live and print Trek marketing materials, including promotions tours for DS9 and as a crew character for Star Trek The Experience in Vegas.

Outside Star Trek, Cameron appeared in several movies including Coneheads, Tales from the Hood, and Tomorrow Man.  She also relived her Vegas show girl days in one of the worst-reviewed movies of all time entitled Sunset Strip.  After wrapping up her TV and movie career, she appeared as the show creator and writer on the burlesque show Cameron's Bump and Grind. She retired from public view following this self-made show.

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