Connie Danese

Connie Danese is the actress who portrayed Crewman Toya in the Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode.

Danese started her acting career in the early 1980s with appearances in the 1982 biopic Groucho in which she portrayed Margaret Dumond/ Thelma Todd and in the 1982 It's A Living episode "Falling in Love Again" on which she worked with Earl Boen and Alan Oppenheimer. The following years she appeared in episodes of The Facts of Life (1985, with Randal Patrick), George Burns Comedy Week (1985, with David L. Lander, Paul Willson, and Kat Sawyer-Young), and Who's the Boss? (1987), the television drama Between the Darkness and the Dawn (1985, with Robin Gammell, Robert DoQui, and David Selburg), the thriller Hunter's Blood (1986, with Ray Young and Burr Middleton), the comedy mini series Fresno (1986, with Teri Garr, Henry Darrow, Jack Kehler, Raye Birk, George D. Wallace, Dakin Matthews, Lynnda Ferguson, and Michael Rider), and the short film The Story of Book One (1987).

Following her work on Star Trek, Danese had supporting parts in the horror comedy Society (1989, with Charles Lucia and Ben Slack), the fantasy comedy Younger and Younger (1993, with Sally Kellerman, Erick Weiss, Davida Williams, and Susan French), and the comedy Meet Wally Sparks (1997, with David Ogden Stiers, Mark L. Taylor, and Scott L. Schwartz). Danese also guest starred in episodes of Murder She Wrote (1990, with Kevin Tighe and Vinny Argiro), Columbo (1990, with Ben Slack and Bill Zuckert), Adam 12 (1990, with Peter Parros, Terry Correll, Jeff Austin, Don Pike, and Meg Wyllie), Pacific Palisades (1997, with Joan Collins, Daphne Ashbrook, and Kris Iyer), and ER (1997, with Leland Crooke, Clancy Brown, and J.P. Hubbell).

Her most recent credited work was a featured part in the science fiction thriller King Cobra (1999, with Joseph Ruskin, Arell Blanton, and Gary Bristow) and guest roles in episodes of Diagnosis Murder (2001, with Eric Pierpoint and Earl Maddox) and NYPD Blue (2001, with Gordon Clapp, Juliana Donald, James G. MacDonald, and Faran Tahir).

Prior to her acting career, Danese worked as columnist on New York's Backstage newspaper, which she left when she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress. Her column "Connie Chats" then appeared in Show Biz West magazine and later moved to the Drama-Logue magazine. Following a break of writing during active acting years, Danese today writes articles and interviews for the LA Stage Times beside working as a Residential Real Estate Agent for Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills.