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Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

It's amazing the number of people who contributed to that short-lived series.

Not really. The Invaders was contemporaneous with Star Trek, so naturally they both drew from the same pool of established actors and thus had a lot of overlap. Casting directors like to go with proven talents, so shows that are on at the same time will tend to use a lot of the same people.
 
Saw John Hoyt (Dr. Boyce in 'The Cage') as the bad guy on an episode of Laramie airing on the digital subchannel Grit yesterday.
 
As per my post including Ian Wolfe you replied to, but apparently missed:

...This show was the basis of what became the series The Defenders on CBS starting in 1961, a series which really indicates how far some shows could push on network television even pre-Star Trek. You think them toying with Caroline Palamas being pregnant at the end of "Who Mourns for Adonais?" was daring? Heck, The Defenders did a whole episode about abortion and out of wedlock pregnancy (and didn't dance around the language) several years before Trek hit the air. It's a fabulous example of forgotten 60s TV and how good it could be and the first season of it is out on DVD, and includes the Studio One "The Defender" above, so if you're a fan of 60s TV and want to see a first rate drama (13 Emmy wins), grab it.

And this episode became the basis for an episode of Mad Men years later, footage from it being used in the episode.
 
I'm pretty sure that Ian Wolfe appeared in some of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies in the nineteen forties! Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Code (1946) The Pearl of Death (1944) Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) and even The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) even though these films were only twenty odd years earlier than Star Trek, they seemed somehow older and visually from a much different age!
JB
 
And this episode became the basis for an episode of Mad Men years later, footage from it being used in the episode.
Boston Legal, I think, rather than Mad Men?

Denny Crane is forced to recall a trial with his father where they defended a murder suspect. It includes flashbacks of a 25-year-old William Shatner as the son of Ralph Bellamy. The flashbacks are from the television series Studio One in Hollywood (1948) and the relevant episode was Studio One in Hollywood: The Defender: Part 1 (1957). The character Joseph Gordon, played by James Keane in this episode, was played by Steve McQueen in 1957.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0977321/trivia?item=tr0747127
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0977321/reference
 
Nancy Kovack showed up as a KOAS agent on the Get Smart ep we watched last night over dinner
kovacksmart.jpg
This one just came up for me as this week's 50th anniversary episode: "The Day They Raided the Knights" (Jan. 11, 1969).
 
I've always been impressed with Walter Koenigs role on Babylon 5; I got the impression that Alfred Bester had a bit of russian heritage, but he was just fantastic.
I enjoyed seeing Dr. Kelso (from Scrubs) on Babylon 5, and on a rewatch realizing he'd guest starred as a Federation scientist in that TNG episode about the nanites. God, that angry old geezer used to be young!

Late last year, after scratching my head for the first two installments, I realized that the Vulcan chancellor? prime minister? from the Enterprise 3-parter in Season 4 was played by Robert Foxworth, who also portrayed Admiral Leyton in DS9 Homefront/Paradise Lost; and if I ever see him guest starring in another show I will automatically assume he's at the top of some nefarious conspiracy. Interestingly enough, at the time that Homefront went into production, he had to decline an invitation to reprise his role as General Hague in Babylon 5 due to scheduling conflicts, and B5 killed him off-screen. Must be a conspiracy.
 
I've always been impressed with Walter Koenigs role on Babylon 5; I got the impression that Alfred Bester had a bit of russian heritage, but he was just fantastic.

Well, Walter Koenig actually is ethnically Russian. Chekov's accent was based on Koenig's parents' accent, which was influenced by the time they spent living in Lithuania before coming to the US.


Late last year, after scratching my head for the first two installments, I realized that the Vulcan chancellor? prime minister? from the Enterprise 3-parter in Season 4 was played by Robert Foxworth, who also portrayed Admiral Leyton in DS9 Homefront/Paradise Lost; and if I ever see him guest starring in another show I will automatically assume he's at the top of some nefarious conspiracy.

I'll always think of Foxworth as the hero of the Gene Roddenberry-Gene Coon pilot movie The Questor Tapes. I got so used to thinking of him as a good guy that it was surprising to see him as a villain on DS9 and later ENT.
 
So here's James Gregory as a sheriff leading a posse of men across the Southwestern desert in an obscure TV Western series called The Outcasts.
 
Steve Inhat guested in this week's 50th anniversary episode of Mission: Impossible, "The Mind of Stefan Miklos" (Jan. 12, 1969), just over a week following his appearance on Trek. Other guests included Jason Evers, Vic Perrin, and toss in non-Trekker Ed Asner for good measure.
 
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