Today in Star Trek history: Brent Spiner is born

The many characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Brent Spiner

FEBRUARY 2, 2022 - Little did I realize when I wrote my trivia article about the Soong family last week that I’d be writing about Brent Spiner again this week, but here we are. Today we celebrate his 73rd birthday.

Spiner was born in Houston, Texas in 1949, the son of Jewish parents who owned a furniture store. When Brent was only 10 months old, his father, 29-year-old Jack, died of kidney failure. Spiner’s step-father, Sol Mintz, eventually adopted Brent and the lad took the last name Mintz in 1955, reclaiming his biological father’s surname in twenty years later.

In his teen years, Spiner, never at a loss for words, joined the Bellaire High School speech team, winning the national championship in dramatic impersonation. As a student at the University of Houston, he was involved in a local theater.

In the early 1970s, Spiner moved to New York City, that hub of theater stars, where he performed on and off-Broadway is such plays as The Three Musketeers and Sunday in the Park with George. He also made his film debut during this period as an uncredited extra in the made-for-television My Sweet Charlie. He would go on to appear in Woody Allen’s 1980 film Stardust Memories as the non-speaking “Fan in the Lobby.”

In 1984, Spiner moved to Los Angeles, California, that hotbed of silver screen idols, beginning his film career in earnest by appearing in several made-for-TV movies. He began to rise in prominence as Bob Wheeler, a recurring character on the sitcom Night Court. He also appeared on an episode of CBS’ The Twilight Zone, the first of many revivals of Rod Serling’s series, playing a condemned soul in the episode “Dead Run.” He also appeared in the sitcoms Mama’s Family and Cheers and in the horror anthology show Tales From the Darkside. In the made-for-TV movie Manhunt for Claude Dallas, he played Jim Stevens. And then he landed the role which would make his career.

Throughout the process of writing and casting Star Trek: The Next Generation, many of the characters changed from the way they were conceived to their eventual execution. The andoid Lieutenant Commander Data was, perhaps, the character who saw the fewest revisions. Gene Roddenberry actually fashioned the character after an earlier creation—Questor. After the original Star Trek was cancelled, Roddenberry tried a few other TV show ideas, including The Questor Tapes, a show about an android seeking his creator and his purpose. Over the course of his search, Questor (whose name may have been a little too on-the-nose for some people) would become more human. A pilot was made, with Robert Foxworth playing the titular synthetic lifeform, but it never sold. You can see echoes of the premise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s V’Ger and, of course, Data, whose quest to become more human lasted through seven years of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Brent Spiner was not, however, the first choice to play the role of Data. Among the possibilities were Mark Lindsay Chapman (Titanic, Chapter 27), Kevin Peter Hall (Predator) and Kevin Han Yee (Westworld, Hawaii Five-O, The Young and the Restless). Also very close to making the cut was an actor named Eric Menyuk, and while he was passed over for the role in part because he looked too similar to Patrick Stewart, he received a consolation prize, of sorts, being cast as The Traveler and appearing in three episodes throughout TNG’s run.

Really, though, it’s hard to imagine anyone other then Spiner in the role of Data. He, along with the writers, gave the character a life beyond the simple desire to be more human. “It was in the audition process that I sort of found what I was going to do,” Spiner told an audience at 2019’s Big Apple Comic Con, adding, “The good thing about playing an android at that point in time, is that not that many people had done it. And so you could kind of do whatever you wanted.”

Spiner denies that he was consciously portraying Data as unknowingly possessing emotions. “I felt like the less I did the better, because I let the audience paint the character onto me. The character said quite often, ‘I do not have feelings.’ But people would write me and say, ‘Oh, I could see you were feeling something in that scene.’ And I thought, ‘Great! I don’t have to do anything, and the audience will help me paint this character!’”

Spiner recorded an album of pop standards in 1991, which he called Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back, with a cover photo of Data sporting a fedora, similar to his outfit in “The Big Goodbye,” his eyes a pair of bright yellow islands in a sea of black-and-white.

In 1997, after TNG had been off the air for several years, Spiner returned to NYC to play John Adams in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the musical 1776. He also went on to appear in many TV series, including The Blacklist, Gargoyles, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Frasier, Mad About You and The Big Bang Theory. In film, he appeared in Independence Day and Independence Day: Resurgence, The Aviator, Dude, Where’s My Car? and Superhero Movie, among others.

Spiner’s versatility and humor can be seen throughout Star Trek, playing four characters in TNG, and its sequel films, one character in Star Trek: Enterprise and two new characters (one of whom we’ll be meeting shortly) in Star Trek: Picard. His many interview and convention appearances prove that he’s an open and funny guy both on and off the set, and last year he displayed yet another talent when he released a book.

Fan Fiction, A Mem-Noir: Inspired By True Events may be more fiction than fact. It tells the story of how Spiner, during the filming of TNG, was threatened by a fan who went too far. It is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and, while the main thrust of the story may not be entirely factual, it also clearly has a lot of truth mixed in. If you haven’t read it yet, you can purchase a copy at the link below.

Please grab yourself a slice of cellular peptide cake with mint frosting and join us at Daily Star Trek News in wishing Brent Spiner the happiest of birthdays.