Today in Star Trek history: comedian and voice actor Maurice LaMarche was born

Maurice LaMarche and his alter egos on Star Trek: Lower Decks, Drew Pratchett and Ensign Ellis Image Gage Skidmore

MARCH 30, 2022 - A comedian and impressionist, Maurice LaMarche has been a well-respected voice in animation for decades, cutting his teeth on the Saturday morning and weekday afternoon cartoons that those of us who are of a certain age devoured. Today is his 64th birthday, so to borrow from what may be his most famous character, the Brain, “Let’s do what we do every week - try to take over the world (with Star Trek history)!”

LaMarche was born in Toronto, Ontario in Canada in 1958, but his family soon moved to Timmins, Ontario. He grew up on the animated shows of the 1960s, which would have included popular cartoons like The Jetsons, The Bullwinkle Show, Underdog, and, of course, The Bugs Bunny Show. It was when he was in 10th grade that he was bitten by the performance bug. A couple of buddies pressured him into entering “variety night,” where he brought the house down with a “celebrities as waiters” comedy act. He loved the audience’s reactions, and his stand-up comedy career was born. The act he performed that night remained in his repertoire until he retired from stand-up.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. When he was 19, LaMarche tried his act at an open mic night in New York City. The reaction wasn’t so good, with the more sophisticated New York audience just totally ignoring him. Back to Canada he went, resolutely continuing his stand-up career there, as well as beginning to do some voice work. LaMarche would move to Los Angeles, California three years later, but regrets it to this day, believing sticking it out in the Big Apple “would have made me a stronger comedian.”

But what’s done is done and LaMarche went on to play comedy clubs throughout the United States and appearing several times on The Mere Griffin Show. During his stand-up career, he worked with Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Saget, George Carlin, and Howie Mandel, among other comic luminaries.

But often, behind a great comic is a great tragedy. On March 9, 1987, Guy LaMarche, Maurice’s father, and Guy’s lifelong friend Timmins “Timmy” Bissonette were attending the annual Prospectors and Developers Convention at downtown Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. Guy and Timmy had been close friends since childhood, but a rift had grown between them. Several years earlier, Guy, a mining stock promoter, had been found guilty of defrauding a bank, putting clients’ mining stocks into a personal account instead.

Through the years, Timmy Bissonette had scraped together over $125,000 to help his friend pay off the fine and restitution the court had ordered, putting himself into a difficult financial position, and creating a rift between the formerly close buddies. Bissonette had located LaMarche, Sr. at the Hotel and had confronted him about the debt. LaMarche allegedly told him that he had changed his mind and he wouldn’t be repaying the money, adding that he knew some thugs from Amsterdam who would have Bissonette “blown away.”

Enough was enough, Bissonette went to his hotel room to retrieve his .38 caliber pistol. Returning to the Royal York lobby, he met LaMarche, Sr. at the top of an escalator and fired twice, once in LaMarche’s back and once in his chest. “You bastard,” were LaMarche’s last words. He was 53 years old.

His father’s death hit Maurice hard, spiraling him into depression and alcoholism and affecting his stand-up career. Two years later, he got sober, but just as he was beginning to build up career momentum again, his 18-year-old sister was killed in a car accident. Though he was able to remain sober after the event, he decided he couldn’t continue as a stand-up comedian. “At that point,” he said in a 2008 interview, “I just threw up my hands and went, ‘Oh, that’s it. I don’t have any funny left in me. I’m done.”

Once LaMarche had established himself in Los Angeles, his voice acting career took off. His first high-profile gig was Inspector Gadget, moving on to Dennis the Menace, Popeye and Son, and then playing Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters. His further animated adventures are too numerous to mention here, but he could be heard on most of the most popular cartoons in the 1980s and ‘90s. He has also played many voices on Futurama and voiced Orson Welles in the 1994 film Ed Wood, with Vincent D’Onofrio actually onscreen.

In 1995, the Animaniacs spun off a new cartoon show, Pinky and the Brain. It was produced by Steven Spielberg and Maurice LaMarche, who had voiced the Brain on the original show, spun off with it. In the show, the Brain, a genetically enhanced mouse, is constantly attempting to take over the world using outrageously complex schemes, which always backfire. LaMarche, on seeing an initial sketch of the character, immediately thought of actor Orson Welles and modeled the voice after him. He won an Annie Award for his portrayal and was nominated for an Emmy.

LaMarche’s association with Star Trek began by providing various voices for the 2001 video game Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates. Then, in the first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, he played the characters of Drew Pratchett and Ensign Ellis in the episode “Much Ado About Boiler.” Pratchett was a Rigellian operations officer, accompanying a friend of Mariner’s who is temporarily reassigned to the USS Cerritos. Ensign Ellis had been in a neutrino field transporter accident, merging with his colleague, Lieutenant Sanderson, at the abdomen and providing them with “two of (almost) everything.”

Please join us here at Daily Star Trek News in raising a glass of Rigellian brandy in honor of Maurice LaMarche’s 64th birthday.

Further Reading

Wikipedia: Maurice LaMarche

Murder at Royal York Hotel mining convention