Joanne Linville, a character actress who had memorable guest-starring turns on episodes of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone in the 1960s, died Sunday in Los Angeles, CAA announced. She was 93.
Linville appeared on dozens of TV shows during her career, from Studio One, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The United States Steel Hour and Have Gun — Will Travel to Dr. Kildare, Route 66, Naked City, I Spy, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Columbo and L.A. Law.
On the big screen, she worked in such films as The Goddess (1958) with Kim Stanley, Scorpio (1973) with Burt Lancaster and A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
Linville also played gossip columnist Hedda Hopper for her ex-husband, director Mark Rydell, in the 2001 TNT telefilm James Dean, starring James Franco.
On the original Star Trek third-season episode “The Enterprise Incident,” which premiered on Sept. 27, 1968, Linville portrayed an iron-willed Romulan commander who tangles with William Shatner’s Kirk and is romanced by Leonard Nimoy’s Spock.
Earlier, she sparkled as a widowed Southern belle opposite James Gregory on the Civil War-set Twilight Zone installment “The Passersby,” which debuted Oct. 6, 1961.
In the late ’80s, Linville and her teacher Stella Adler started an acting conservatory under Adler’s name. She then wrote Seven Steps to an Acting Craft, published in 2011.
She was born Beverly Joanne Linville on Jan. 15, 1928, in Bakersfield, California, and raised in Venice, California.
Survivors include her ex-husband, Oscar-nominated director Rydell (On Golden Pond) — they were married from 1962 until their 1973 divorce — and their children, Christopher and Amy, both actors; grandchildren Austen, Ruby and Ginger; and great-grandson Kingston.
