Favorite Native American, Egyptian, Klingon, Michael Ansara, Dies

Michael Ansara, 91, TV, screen, and voice actor best known for his portrayal of Cochise in the American television series “Broken Arrow”has taken his Final Taxi.  Another popular role was that of Klingon Commander Kang on three different Star Trek TV series.  He was one of only a handful of actors to boldly go from “Star Trek [the Original Series]” to “Deep Space Nine” to “Voyager” – playing the exact same character on each of them.

Ansara played Kane in the 1979–81 series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart on the NBC series, Law of the Plainsman. He guest starred on many of the most well-known television series of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” “The Rifleman,” “The Untouchables,” “Perry Mason,” “The Outer Limits,” “Ben Casey,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “Lost in Space,” “Bewitched,” “The Fugitive,” “The Mod Squad,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Hawaii 5-0” and “Kojak.” 

In later years he took on several voice acting roles, providing the voice for Mr. Freeze in “Batman: The Animated Series” and General Warhawk in the Rambo cartoon.  Ansara was married for 16 years to Barbara Eden who is best known for her role in the hit sitcom, “I Dream of Jeannie”.  They even acted together in that series three times.

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Robocop’s Sgt. Reed – Robert DoQui

 Do you remember those Robocop movies?

Robert DoQui, a stage, screen and TV actor whose rough-edged character roles included Sgt. Warren Reed in three Robocop movies has taken his Final Taxi at age 74.

Born in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1934, DoQui attended Langston University on a music scholarship and was a member of singing group the Langstonaires. He served in the United States Air Force for four years before going to New York, then Hollywood.

In the 1960s, he began acting in films and TV shows.

DoQui was a guest on a wide variety of live-action TV series, including Gunsmoke, Tarzan, I Dream of Jeannie, Happy Days, The Jeffersons, Maude, E.R., NYPD Blue, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (as a Klingon), Picket Fences, Starman, Webster, The Fall Guy, Punky Brewster, Hill Street Blues, The Streets of San Francisco, Sanford and Son, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Mod Squad, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Outer Limits. He last appeared on a 2003 episode of Wanda at Large.

He was former slave Ben in Disney’s live-action 1976 movie Treasure of the Matecumbe. He portrayed flamboyant pimp King George in Jack Hill’s blaxploitation classic Coffy. Other appearances include Fortune Cookie and miniseries How The West Was Won and Centennial.

DoQui portrayed a fanatical religious cult member in Guyana: Crime of the Century, and a short-tempered short-order cook in Miracle Mile. He played a police officer in both Cloak & Dagger and My Science Project. Was that because of his roles in the Robocop trilogy?

He also appeared in three Robert Altman films, “Nashville,” “Buffalo Bill & The Indians” and “Short Cuts,” for which he was part of the Golden Globe and Venice Film Fest award-winning ensemble cast.

DoQui’s distinctive voice kept him on dozens of animated TV shows over his 50-year career. Often in the voice cast of Hanna-Barbera’s The New Scooby-Doo Movies, he was Pablo Robinson in the episodes The Ghostly Creep From The Deep (1972), The Loch Ness Mess (1972) and The Mystery Of Haunted Island (1973). He was credited as “Robert Do Qui” when voicing Robinson in Hanna-Barbera’s The Harlem Globetrotters (1970-71).

He was in the voice cast of the short-lived 1985 H-B series The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians and in the Batman cartoon as well.

He also served for a decade on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild, helping it encourage women and minority groups to participate in the media.