J.M. Colt was a crewmember of the USS Enterprise in the mid-23rd century. She served as Captain Christopher Pike's yeoman for some time from 2254, replacing his yeoman killed in the fight on Rigel VII.
When Pike was captured by the Talosians, Colt was one of six crewmembers who volunteered to beam into the Talosians' underground city to rescue him. In fact, the Talosians had read Colt's attraction to Pike and manipulated events so that only she and "Number One" transported down. All three Enterprise crewmembers escaped the Talosians alive and uninjured. (TOS: "The Cage")
Appendices
Background information
Yeoman Colt was played by Laurel Goodwin. According to Gene Roddenberry's series pitches and scripts, her initials were "J.M.", but their meaning was never alluded to.
The following character biography appears in the series proposal Star Trek is...:
- "The Captain's Yeoman. Except for problems in naval parlance, J. M. Colt would be called a yeo-woman. With a strip-queen figure even a uniform cannot hide, Colt serves as Captain's secretary, reporter, bookkeeper – and with surprising efficiency. She undoubtedly dreams of serving Robert April with equal efficiency in personal departments."
The note about Colt's title not being Yeo-woman was included in the second revised final draft script of "The Cage", which goes on to say of the character, "About twenty, she's pert and shapely, but carries herself with trained precision." Also, that draft of the script does not include dialogue from the episode's final version in which the Talosian magistrate known as The Keeper regards Colt as having "unusually strong female drives."
This character eventually developed into becoming Yeoman Janice Rand for the later episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. (Star Trek Memories, p. 24)
Apocrypha
The comic book series, Star Trek: Early Voyages, named her "Mia Colt". Although this might seem contradictory to her first initial being "J", her second initial was "M", and she may have gone by her middle name rather than her first.