Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on actors who played multiple roles in Star Trek, with a look at actor William Morgan Sheppard, who played 4 different memorable characters in Trek.
William Sheppard was born in 1932 in London and was educated in Ireland and the UK. He started his career with a 12-year stint in the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in various stage plays. In the 1970s he moved into TV acting, especially on British television shows. Over the next 30+ years he generally showed up as a guest actor in small roles on all kinds of TV shows and movies, which brings us to his Trek appearances.
His first and most notable appearance was as the scientist Ira Graves in the season 2 episode of TNG entitled The Schizoid Man. He is effectively a grandfather figure to Commander Data because he taught Data's creator Noonien Soong everything he knew. Graves has a terminal illness when the Enterprise comes across him, so they are working on saving all of his research, leading Data and Graves to spend a lot of time together. Graves transfers his consciousness into Data to try and live forever, but the Enterprise crew figures this out, and Graves surrenders Data's body by transferring his knowledge but not his consciousness to the Enterprise computer, dying once and for all.
The next we see of William Sheppard is as the one-eyed Klingon Commandant on Rura Penthe in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The Commandant welcomes Kirk and Bones to the prison planet and then helps try to entrap them in a conspiracy to kill them, but as well all know, Spock and the Enterprise foil this plan.
The next we see of William Sheppard is as the one-eyed Klingon Commandant on Rura Penthe in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The Commandant welcomes Kirk and Bones to the prison planet and then helps try to entrap them in a conspiracy to kill them, but as well all know, Spock and the Enterprise foil this plan.
His next character was as a pilot of a ship hunting a ship-devouring protoplasmic beast that creates illusions to trap and consume ships and their inhabitants, in the Voyager episode Bliss. This character Qatai is a bit of a Captain Ahab here, trying to exact vengeance on the beast for eating his family 40 years before. He helps the Voyager escape after they are fooled by the beast and continues his battle with the beast.
Finally, Sheppard appears as the lead Vulcan science minister who tells Spock that he has made the Vulcan Academy despite his disadvantage of a human mother in the 2009 Star Trek movie. We'll never forget Zachary Quinto's Spock basically telling this guy off and going to Starfleet instead.
Despite only appearing a single time for each of these characters, William Morgan Sheppard left a memorable impact by playing interesting characters in great Trek stories. He leaves a legacy that all other guest actors should aspire to for this series.
William Morgan Sheppard died in January of this year, with his wife and son by his side in the hospital. His son has also appeared on Star Trek and on Doctor Who, making them two of the only actors to cross over in those two famous sci-fi universes.
Thanks to Jared on the Discord for this segment suggestion!
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