R.I.P. in 2020

In 2020, Star Trek lost the last of its founders in Herb Solow. Along with Robert Justman and Sam Peeples principally, he helped Gene Roddenberry develop Star Trek as a television series. He shared Gene’s enthusiasm for Gulliver’s Travels, noticing that it gained credibility by being a report made afterwards. This suggested the device of the Captain’s Log. As a new Desilu executive, Solow guided the series into its two pilots and then into production. With Justman, he later co-authored Inside Star Trek, which besides engaging in the score-settling that occurred after Roddenberry’s death, adds to the panoply of information about Star Trek’s origins and first years.

 2020 also saw the death of probably the last major figure of the pulp science fiction magazine era in writer, editor and anthologist Ben Bova. A six-time Hugo Award winning and prolific author, Bova also edited Analog, following the iconic John W. Campbell in 1971. He was an editor of the glossy future-oriented magazine Omni in the late 70s and early 80s. He’d been a technical writer on the first U.S. satellite launching rocket program for the Navy, Project Vanguard, and later became scientific advisor for a number of television shows and movies.  

Maurice Roeves

 Among Star Trek actors who passed in 2020, probably the most prominent is Ben Cross, who played Sarek in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek. Cross achieved initial fame with his signature role in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. The accomplished UK actor Maurice Roeves played the Romulan commander in the TNG episode “The Chase,” as well as appearing in a classic era Doctor Who story. He appeared in feature films through 6 decades, beginning with the role I best remember: Stephen Dedalus in the 1967 production of James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

 Among the original series actors who died in 2020 were Robert Leroy Samson, Marj Dusay, Dyanne Thorne, Erik Holland and Harry Basch. 

 

Pamela Kosh

TNG actors include Kevin Conway (who also starred in the TV version of Ursula LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven), David Lander, Michael Keenan (who also appeared in DS9 and Voyager), Anthony Jones, Edward Penn and Cheryl Marie Wheeler Duncan, William Thomas, Jr. and Pamela Kosh (who memorably played Mrs. Carmichael in “Time’s Arrow part 2.”) TNG also lost writer Lan O’Kun (co-writer of the story for “Haven.”)

Galyn Gorg

 Deep Space Nine lost actors Galyn Gorg (Korena Sisko), James Otis, William Dennis Hunt, and director of photography Douglas Knapp. 

 Among those Voyager lost were veteran actor Richard Herd (who played Owen Paris), Garret Sato, Mel Winkler and Ryan MacDonald.

Tommy Lister, Jr., John Mahan and Geno Silva appeared in Enterprise. 

Claudette Nevins

 George Sasaki appear in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Claudette Nevins in Star Trek: Insurrection. Stunt player Noby Arden worked on Star Trek: Nemesis. 

Honor Blackman

 The most prominent actor to appear in a classic Doctor Who story to die in 2020 was likely the famed movie and television actress Honor Blackman. 

 

Ed Cameron

The oldest veteran of Doctor Who so far died in 2020: the distinguished British actor Earl Cameron was 102. Among those that Doctor Who lost were David Collins, Nicholas Parsons and writer Pip Baker.

May they all rest in peace.  Their work lives on.