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Mark Lenard
Age: N/A (passed away Nov. 22nd, 1996)
Height: 6'
Birth Place: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Born: N/A
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Mark Lenard's Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: Lenard was born Oct 15 1924 Leonard Rosenson in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from high school in 1941, when he was only 16 years old. He then enrolled in the University of Michigan as a literature major. He was a veteran of the Second World War, joining the US Army in 1943 and becoming a paratrooper in Europe. He rose rapidly through the enlisted ranks until he was discharged as a Technical Sergeant in 1946.
During his military service, Lenard was chosen for a lead role in an Army presentation of Volpone. This was his first acting experience. He moved to New York and attended the New School in the hopes of becoming a writer.
Lenard accepted the lead role in an off-Broadway production of James Joyce's Exiles. He returned to the University of Michigan and received a Master's Degree in Theatre and Speech. Returning to New York to pursue a career as a Broadway actor.
He made his Broadway debut in 1957 as an understudy for actors Philip Abbott and William Smithers in The Square Root of Wonderful. He returned to Broadway in 1959 for William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
In 1962, he was performing in a play called We Take the Town, but this production closed before it could make it to Broadway. Lenard also performed in plays and earned several awards for his work.
Lenard met his future wife, Ann Amouri, in an acting class. They later toured together in a road company production of A Far Country, portraying Dr. Sigmund Freud. Lenard and Amouri married in 1960, ultimately having two children, daughters Roberta and Catherine.
In 1959, while still in New York, Lenard began taking on television roles. He became a main cast member on the CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow.
Lenard portrayed Rochefort in a TV movie version of The Three Musketeers.
In 1961, Lenard acted with Christopher Plummer in The Prisoner of Zenda. Followed by appearances on The Defenders, Lamp Unto My Feet, and The Nurses. During the 1964-65 television season, he became a regular on the NBC soap opera Another World.
He made his feature film debut in the 1965 biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told, in which he played Balthazar.
In 1966, Lenard and his family permanently moved to Los Angeles. A month later, Lenard was cast as the Romulan Commander in the Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror".
Between 1966 and 1970, Lenard guest-starred in four episodes of Mission: Impossible.
Lenard also had roles on Jericho, The Iron Horse, Felony Squad, The Wild Wild West, Judd for the Defense, It Takes a Thief and Insight. Then he appeared in his second film, the 1968 western Hang 'Em High.
Lenard was a regular on comedy-adventure series Here Come the Brides portraying sawmill owner Aaron Stempel.
Lenard guest-starred on Search, Mannix, The Magician, How the West Was Won, and The Incredible Hulk. He appeared in three episodes of Hawaii Five-O.
Lenard portrayed General Orka in the short-lived Planet of the Apes tv series. In 1979, Lenard played the evil Emperor Thorval in NBC's science-fiction/western serial Cliffhangers: The Secret Empire.
Lenard had supporting roles in the tv movies Outrage (1973) and Getting Married (1978). He also played the lead in the 1975 film Noon Sunday and a small role in Annie Hall.
In 1981, Lenard guest-starred on the popular science fiction series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Except for Star Trek, Lenard did little else in film and television during the 1980s and 1990s. He spent much of his teaching acting in New York City, commuting back and forth between the east and west coasts.
Lenard had moved on to voice-over work. He was the spokesman for the Saab automobile company in the 1980s. When his contract with Saab ended in the early 1990s, Lenard spokesman for Zenith watches. He voiced for local and national commercials for many companies, in addition to supplying narration and commentary for tv networks PBS, The Learning Channel, and the Discovery Channel.
He guest-starred in an episode of Otherworld in 1985. He had a supporting role in the 1990 film The Radicals.
During the early 1990s, Lenard toured the country with Walter Koenig in the two-man play The Boys of Autumn.
Lenard made his final screen appearance on In the Heat of the Night in the 1993 episode "Legacy".
In October 1995, Lenard complained of a pain in his ribs, but an X-ray revealed nothing. In December Lenard began experiencing fatigue and chronic back pain. After tests and examinations, it was discovered that Lenard was anaemic. A bone marrow biopsy revealed he had multiple myeloma.
A prognosis of several years with plasmapheresis and chemotherapy, despite the fact he was already at Stage III. By March 1996 the prognosis had worsened. He had bouts of pneumonia and and ultimately the disease attacked his liver and kidneys. He died of kidney failure on 22 November 1996 aged 72. Survived by Ann, wife of 36 years, and their two daughters.
TRIVIA:
- Had to have his hair dyed and makeup applied to his face to make him look older while playing Sarek, the Vulcan father of Spock on _"Star Trek" (1966)_ (qv) because in reality he wasn't that much older than 'Leonard Nimoy' (qv), who played Spock.
- Mark Lenard is one of the few actors ever to portray three different aliens on Star Trek: a Romulan, a Klingon and a Vulcan.
- In addition to having played all three (at the time) major aliens in the Star Trek universe (the Romulan commander in the original series "Balance of Terror", the Vulcan Sarek, and the Klingon captain in _Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)_ (qv)), he also almost played a human - 'Gene Roddenberry' (qv) wanted him to portray 'Abraham Lincoln (I)' (qv) in "The Savage Curtain" (the episode where Kirk, Spock, Lincoln, and Vulcan legend Surak represent "good" in a staged battle with Genghis Khan and three others representing "evil"), but Lenard was unavailable at the time.
- Has 2 daughters.
- Is one of only 32 actors or actresses to have starred in both the original _"Star Trek" (1966)_ (qv) (up to and including _Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)_ (qv)) and then in one of the spin offs.
- In addition to appearing in several Star Trek shows and movies as Spock's father, Sarek, Lenard also played the very first Romulan ever seen and played the first Klingon to feature a "forehead" (the lumpy forehead prosthetics).
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