James Avery

With the passing of Joseph Ruskin only a few days ago, another actor who graced the Star Trek universe has departed.

Probably better remembered as Uncle Phil in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, James Avery passed away following complications during surgery on New Year's Eve.

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Avery appeared during the fourth (and best) season of Enterprise as Klingon General K'Vagh in Affliction and Divergence which dealt with the Augment virus. Notably he also provided his voice to the cartoon series Gargoyles which featured a hefty number of The Next Generation cast. Interestingly Michael Dorn featured in that animated series - the man who beat Avery to the role of Worf.

James Avery's vocal talents didn't stop with Gargoyles though and among other roles I also recall him as the voice of Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon - a staple of my weekday afternoon kids television viewing in the late 1980's (da-da da-da da-da dah-da). That in turn means it's a good excuse to add in a relevant picture....

RIP James Avery.

Joseph Ruskin

Sadly the end of 2013 also saw the death of Star Trek actor Joseph Ruskin.

While most fans will immediately associate him with the role of Galt in the episode The Gamesters of Triskelion he has many more links to the franchise. 

His other more well-known role was of Tumek in The House of Quark and Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places (above) but there were also three lesser roles which saw Ruskin on screen.

He stepped into the shadows briefly to play Odo's Cardassian informant in Improbable Cause, portrayed a Sona officer in Insurrection, a Vulcan Master in Voyager's Gravity and finally took a turn in the Enteprise pilot Broken Bow as a Suliban doctor which means the only show he never touched base with was The Next Generation - well, not on TV at least. Still, this places him as one of the very few to have been onscreen with every generation even if not every series. When you consider that Majel Barrett only acted as a computer voice in Enterprise he might even out do her!

For me he will always be Galt although oddly I only watched The House of Quark on December 28th which is a little spooky in every way possible. Galt was a strange, stoic character that featured in one of the classic stories so his place among Star Trek lore is firmly established just from that appearance. 

However, I never actually appreciated that his association had been so big with the show or that he had appeared in so many guises. In fact looking over his IMDB file he also lent his voice as Master Si'tann in the Star Trek game Hidden Evil alongside other franchise luminaries including Salome Jens (Female Shapeshifter), Gary Graham (Soval) and The Next Generation's Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner.

Thanks for the memories Mr Ruskin, they will live with us forever.

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