Ben Slack

Ben Slack was the actor who played K'Tal in, a fourth season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in. Slack filmed his scenes on Friday and Monday  on Paramount Stage 16. He reprised this role for the fifth season episode and filmed his scenes in the Great Hall on Tuesday  on Paramount Stage 16. In the latter episode he had no dialogue, no screen credit and was only barely seen in a wide shot.

Slack was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where he also died at the age of 67.

Slack had recurring roles on the television series Cagney & Lacey, The Wonder Years, and The Practice. In the latter series, he has worked with such Star Trek alumni as Megan Cole, Raymond Cruz, Cliff DeYoung, Albert Hall, James Ingersoll, Jack Kehler, Lawrence Monoson, Tim Ransom, John Rubinstein, and Barry Wiggins. On Wonder Years, he worked with series regular Olivia d'Abo and, on one episode, with Star Trek: Voyager star Robert Picardo.

Slack was also seen in the pilot episode of the popular medical drama St. Elsewhere, which aired in 1982. Starring on this series were fellow Trekkers Ed Begley, Jr., Norman Lloyd, Kavi Raz, and Jennifer Savidge. He would appear on the series again the following year, during which time Chad Allen and Jane Wyatt had joined the cast.

His many other TV credits include Kojak, All in the Family (with Bill Quinn and Jason Wingreen), Barney Miller (with Ron Glass, James Gregory, and Kenneth Tigar), Hill Street Blues (with Barbara Bosson, George Murdock, Eric Pierpoint, James B. Sikking, Lawrence Tierney, Tracey Walter, and Morgan Woodward), Scarecrow and Mrs. King (with Daniel Davis, Anne Haney, and Allan Miller), Moonlighting (with Vincent Schiavelli), Hardcastle and McCormack (starring Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh Kelly), The A-Team (starring Dwight Schultz and Lance LeGault), Hunter (with Bruce Davison and Persis Khambatta), Murder, She Wrote (with Barbara Babcock, Miriam Flynn, Vince Howard, and William Windom), Night Court (with Susan Diol and John Larroquette), L.A. Law (with Daniel Benzali, Corbin Bernsen, Larry Drake, and Willie Garson), NYPD Blue (starring Gordon Clapp and Sharon Lawrence), Lois & Clark (starring K Callan and Teri Hatcher), and the Jonathan Frakes hosted Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. He also made an appearance on the William Shatner series T.J. Hooker (co-starring James Darren and Richard Herd) in 1983. He also appeared in an episode of the Three's Company sequel Three's a Crowd with Voyager's Ethan Phillips and an episode of the short-lived science fiction series Deadly Games, starring Christopher Lloyd and TNG co-star Brent Spiner.

He has also appeared in numerous TV movies, including 1982's The Wall (with James Cromwell), 1983's Sadat (with Nehemiah Persoff, Tony Plana, and John Rhys-Davies), 1988's Baby M (with Stephen Liska, Dakin Matthews, Bruce McGill, and Helene Udy), 1986's When the Bough Breaks (with Merritt Butrick and David Huddleston), 1991's Changes (with Michael Nouri and James Sloyan), and 1996's Death Benefit (1996, with Penny Johnson, Jack Kehler, Glenn Morshower)

Slack co-starred with TNG and DS9 actor Colm Meaney in the films Come See the Paradise (1990) and October 22 (1998, with Donna Murphy). His other film credits include Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978, starring Paul Sorvino), The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Bachelor Party (1984, with Coleen Maloney, Arlee Reed, John Bloom, Gerard Prendergast, Brett Baxter Clark, and Jim Hudson), An Innocent Man (1989, starring F. Murray Abraham), Almost an Angel (1990), S.F.W (1994), Murder in the First (1995, starring Christian Slater and Brad Dourif, with Eve Brenner, Stefan Gierasch, and Time Winters), and The Shadow Men (1998, with Dean Stockwell and Andrew Prine). His most prominent film role, however, was that of Dr. Cleveland in the 1989 horror movie Society.

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Ben Slack