Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on actors who played multiple roles in Star Trek, with a look at Mark Lenard.
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Mark Lenard is best known for his portrayal of Sarek, Spock's Vulcan Ambassador father on various episodes of Star Trek as well as in several of the movies. Sarek marries a human named Amanda while serving as Ambassador, and that union leads to the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock character which is so vital in the original Star Trek. Of course, this is not the only role he played on TOS and its movies.
To this end, Lenard was first case in season 1's Balance of Terror as a Romulan Commander. He's the first Romulan to be seen on screen with Vulcan-like ears, and these must have been a natural fit considering his hiring to be Sarek just one year later. Lenard wanted to play Sarek in the first Star Trek feature film, but that character was not written into the script for him. Instead, Lenard gets to play a Klingon Commander and be the first to show off the then-new distinctive forehead ridges we now associate with all Klingons, as well as the Klingon language. Lenard also got his wish for Sarek to appear in three of the next five movies.
INSERT KLINGON QUOTE
A couple interesting tidbits about Lenard's time on Trek. He was one of the options to replace Leonard Nimoy as Spock when contract negotiations for Season 2 broke down, but that obviously did not become necessary. He was also the first choice to play Abraham Lincoln in the episode The Savage Curtain, and that did not happen as a result of his regular role at the time on TV series Here Come the Brides. We just have to live with Lenard portraying groundbreaking Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon characters instead.
Outside Trek, Lenard worked for many decades in theater, television, and film. He's a two-time graduate of the University of Michigan (Boooo!), and he settled in New York following the majority of his career wrapping up in 1980. He still appeared in Star Trek at this time, but most of his work in this time period was teaching other actors and voiceover work for things like commercials, covering things like Saab vehicles and Zenith watches:
INSERT COMMERCIAL
Lenard was brought into acting while serving in the military as a paratrooper in World War 2. He won the lead role in an Army presentation of the play Volpone, which toured throughout Europe during the war. His passion for writing and acting flourished and caused him to move to Hollywood and New York. He passed away of multiple myleoma in 1996 at the age of 72, leaving behind two adult daughters and his wife.
Although we see a different Sarek in the JJ Abrams movies as well as in Discovery, Mark Lenard established a high baseline for what to expect from this complicated parental figure. His contributions to be on the cutting edge of a number of different races in Star Trek adds a ton to what he brought to this franchise, and we have to respect and thank him for all that.
Mark Lenard is best known for his portrayal of Sarek, Spock's Vulcan Ambassador father on various episodes of Star Trek as well as in several of the movies. Sarek marries a human named Amanda while serving as Ambassador, and that union leads to the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock character which is so vital in the original Star Trek. Of course, this is not the only role he played on TOS and its movies.
To this end, Lenard was first case in season 1's Balance of Terror as a Romulan Commander. He's the first Romulan to be seen on screen with Vulcan-like ears, and these must have been a natural fit considering his hiring to be Sarek just one year later. Lenard wanted to play Sarek in the first Star Trek feature film, but that character was not written into the script for him. Instead, Lenard gets to play a Klingon Commander and be the first to show off the then-new distinctive forehead ridges we now associate with all Klingons, as well as the Klingon language. Lenard also got his wish for Sarek to appear in three of the next five movies.
INSERT KLINGON QUOTE
A couple interesting tidbits about Lenard's time on Trek. He was one of the options to replace Leonard Nimoy as Spock when contract negotiations for Season 2 broke down, but that obviously did not become necessary. He was also the first choice to play Abraham Lincoln in the episode The Savage Curtain, and that did not happen as a result of his regular role at the time on TV series Here Come the Brides. We just have to live with Lenard portraying groundbreaking Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon characters instead.
Outside Trek, Lenard worked for many decades in theater, television, and film. He's a two-time graduate of the University of Michigan (Boooo!), and he settled in New York following the majority of his career wrapping up in 1980. He still appeared in Star Trek at this time, but most of his work in this time period was teaching other actors and voiceover work for things like commercials, covering things like Saab vehicles and Zenith watches:
INSERT COMMERCIAL
Lenard was brought into acting while serving in the military as a paratrooper in World War 2. He won the lead role in an Army presentation of the play Volpone, which toured throughout Europe during the war. His passion for writing and acting flourished and caused him to move to Hollywood and New York. He passed away of multiple myleoma in 1996 at the age of 72, leaving behind two adult daughters and his wife.
Although we see a different Sarek in the JJ Abrams movies as well as in Discovery, Mark Lenard established a high baseline for what to expect from this complicated parental figure. His contributions to be on the cutting edge of a number of different races in Star Trek adds a ton to what he brought to this franchise, and we have to respect and thank him for all that.
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