Gabrielle Beaumont
Gabrielle Beaumont (7 April 1942–8 October 2022; age 80) was an English director who directed seven episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and one episode of both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. She was the first woman to direct on Star Trek.
She was born Gabrielle Amanda Toyne in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire into a show business family going back four generations, to actor parents Gabriel Toyne and Diana Beaumont. Her great-uncle was noted thespian and theatre manager Sir Gerald du Maurier, making her a cousin of famed writer Daphne du Maurier. Her brother, Christopher Toyne is also an actor and director.
She started out as a child actress on the London stage at age seven in a production of Peter Pan and spent five years with the ensemble of a repertoire theatre. After graduating from high school, she took her mother's maiden name. She graduated in stage direction and worked at the BBC as a film editor, working her way up to assistant director, production manager, and director.
After directing several documentaries and television series episodes for the BBC, she helmed The Godsend (1980), which was co-written by her future husband, actor Olaf Pooley. In the same year, she traveled to Los Angeles to meet US television producer Aaron Spelling who was looking for female directors, being pressured by the industry to employ more women in this capacity.
Beaumont debuted in American television with an episode of Spelling's Vega$, featuring Gary Lockwood, Barbara Baldavin, Ian Abercrombie, and Frank Corsentino. This way followed by a two-decade career in television directing in Hollywood. Her other directorial credits include M*A*S*H (starring David Ogden Stiers), The Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice, Law & Order, and Beverly Hills, 90210.
In 1982, she married Olaf Pooley, who appeared in the Voyager episode "Blink of an Eye", which Beaumont directed. She had previously directed Pooley in Rainbow (1978), Shadows (1978), Gone Are the Dayes (1984, co-starring Bibi Besch), The Paradise Club (1989), TECX (1990), L.A. Law (1992), Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1996, starring Joe Lando), and Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus (1996, co-starring Patrick Kilpatrick, Tony Todd, and David Warner). The pair later separated.
Beaumont wrote an episode of A Fine Romance (1989), as well as Diana: A Tribute to the People's Princess (1998).
In August 1994, Beaumont married cinematographer Michael J. Davis, who died in 2008. After retiring from the film and television industry, Beaumont moved to Spain. She died in her home on the Spanish island of Mallorca on October 8, 2022. [1]