Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Ensign Herbert, a background character who appears in a couple episodes of TNG.
Ensign Herbert is a transporter chief who is seen running the console in the transporter room in a couple of episodes. His first appearance comes in the first season episode We'll Always Have Paris. He later shows up in season 2, including in the episode The Icarus Factor. Obviously during this time period Chief Miles O'Brien is more typical at this post, but since O'Brien can't work 24 hours a day, it makes sense that we would sometimes see another face here.
There's not much fleshed out about this character on screen, so let's instead focus on the actor who plays this character, that being Lance Spellerberg. Spellerberg is a proud alumnus of The Ohio State University, like yours truly, but unlike me, he went into theater and has made that into a successful career, mostly on stage rather than on screen. His brother went into law and became a well-known entertainment lawyer, so both have a little slice of Hollywood in them.
He spent some time touring with the National Shakespeare Company while based in New York, and he has spent a couple decades acting in over 40 stage productions. He has one writing credit to his name, that being the short film Thinking Too Much in 1993. As is often the case with actors, he has led an interesting life path with stints in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Honolulu to go along with the aforementioned NYC. He married in 1994 and their only son just turned 18. We will see if young Ellis will follow his father's footsteps.
On screen, in addition to Trek, Spellerberg has played small roles in movies like The Cookout and Double Jeopardy. His appearance on TNG was his only screen appearance until 1997, when he then spent about 5-7 years doing small roles mostly on TV shows. He is currently settled in Los Angeles and still pursues stage acting while he nears the age of 60.
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