Star Trek Actors You May Not Know Passed Away
By Ava Barnes
"Star Trek" has long been known for its high-profile guest stars, and the franchise received another in 2000 in an episode of "Star Trek: Voyager." The seventh season installment "Critical Care" features Larry Drake as Chellick, the unfeeling administrator of an alien hospital. There, health care is doled out based on status and the ship's holographic doctor (Robert Picardo) is forced into servitude when his program is stolen from Voyager. Horror fans might know Drake for a different doctor role, though, as he also played the titular psycho killer in "Doctor Giggles."
Perhaps more notably, Drake played the villainous Durant in Sam Raimi's "Darkman" (as well as its Raimi-less sequel), but even that wasn't his most famous role. That title belongs to Benny, the intellectually disabled clerk on "L.A. Law," whom he played for the show's entire run, bumped up from guest star to main cast member in the show's third season. He reprised that role in the 2002 reunion, "L.A. Law: The Movie."
In the late '90s, Drake also starred in "Prey," a sci-fi medical drama series starring Debra Messing, but by the 2000s he had begun doing voicework in animation and video games. He played Pops on the Cartoon Network classic "Johnny Bravo," and later voicework included roles in "Green Lantern: First Flight," "Justice League," and "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed." He died in 2016, around the same time that his final film, "The Secrets of Emily Blair," was released. He was 66.
