Numerous actors appeared in several of the series that followed Star Trek: The Original Series, among them Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, Jonathan Frakes, Vaughn Armstrong, Randy Oglesby, Steve Rankin, Tim Russ, Clint Howard, Armin Shimerman, and Lee Arenberg. And a few guest-starred in The Original Series AND several of the shows that followed, including Barrett-Roddenberry, Howard, and the late Joseph Ruskin.
Ruskin’s direct association with Star Trek spanned from 1968 to 2001, as he appeared on TOS, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, as well as two video games and the feature film, Star Trek: Insurrection. His first appearance, as Galt in the second-season TOS episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” was probably his most famous outing. He also played a Klingon, Tumek, in the DS9 installments “The House of Quark” and “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” a Cardassian in the DS9 hour “Improbable Cause,” a Vulcan in Voyager’s “Gravity,” and a Suliban medic in the Enterprise pilot, “Broken Bow.” Ruskin also lent his voice to characters in the video games Star Trek: Hidden Evil and Star Trek: Away Team.
More indirectly, Ruskin crossed paths with multiple Star Trek talents. He co-starred in “Production and Decay of Strange Particles,” a first-season episode of The Outer Limits that aired in 1964 and also featured Leonard Nimoy and Barry Russo. His last film, the 2006 faction-thriller Smokin’ Aces, saw him share scenes with Chris Pine, who went on to play Kirk in the Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movies. And, for many years, he was a regular on the Star Trek convention circuit.
Additionally, Ruskin was a member of the Los Angeles-based theater group called The Antaeus Company, whose members have included Armin Shimerman, Kitty Swink, Harry Groener, Linda Park, Tony Amendola, J.D. Cullum, Ayre Gross, Dakin Matthews, Robert Pine, Lawrence Pressman, and Kurtwood Smith, among others. In fact, Shimerman directed Ruskin in an Antaeus production of The Crucible that ran from May 9 to July 7, 2013, just a few months before Ruskin passed away at the age of 89 on December 28, 2013.
As busy as he was in Star Trek shows, films, and games, they represented just a fraction of the prolific actor's output. Ruskin amassed more than 160 film and television credits over the course of his career, from The Honeymooners, The Twilight Zone, Get Smart, Land of the Giants, and Mission: Impossible to The Bionic Woman, Mrs. Columbo (which starred Kate Mulgrew), Indecent Proposal, ER, and The Scorpion King.
What was your favorite performance by Joseph Ruskin?