Today in Star Trek history: Star Trek guest actor Joseph Mell was born
Joseph Mell in Star Trek “The Cage”
It was today, June 23rd, back in 1915, that Joseph Mell was born in Chicago, Illinois. Mell had an uncredited acting role as a trader in the first Original Series pilot episode, “The Cage” (and of course later in “The Menagerie, Part II”).
Born Joseph Mellovitz, Mell starred in over 70 films and over 110 television productions. In addition to “The Cage”, where he can be seen munching a grape and sporting a single earring, he was in six episodes of Gunsmoke, three of Dragnet, and was a prolific character actor in everything from Adventures of Superman and The Dick Van Dyke Show to The Untouchables and Perry Mason, and he even did three episodes of Wagon Train, the western series Gene Roddenberry likened Star Trek to in his original pitch.
On film, Mell was seen in When Worlds Collide, Singing in the Rain, Pillow Talk, I Married 40 Million Women and Sweet Charity, to name but a few. He died in Los Angeles on August 31, 1977.
T is the Managing Editor for Daily Star Trek News and a contributing writer for Sherlock Holmes Magazine and a Shakespeare nerd. He may have been the last professional Stage Manager to work with Leonard Nimoy, has worked Off-Broadway and regionally, and is the union Stage Manager for Legacy Theatre, where he is currently working with Julie Andrews. after which he’ll be working on Richard III at Elm Shakespeare Company.
