Caroline Kava

Caroline Kava is the actress who played Doctor Toby Russell in the Star Trek: The Next Generation fifth season episode in. She filmed her scenes for this episode between Thursday and Friday  and Tuesday  and Friday  on Paramount Stage 8, 9, and 16. Two of her three costumes from this episode were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay.

Kava made her television debut on the 1976 CBS series Ivan the Terrible, as did Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actress Nana Visitor. Nearly fifteen years later, Kava portrayed the mother of Sam Beckett, played by future Star Trek: Enterprise star Scott Bakula, in the episode of Quantum Leap entitled "The Leap Home, Part 1". In addition, she has appeared on Max Headroom (starring fellow TNG guest performer Matt Frewer in the title role, and also featuring Andreas Katsulas, Charles Rocket, and Concetta Tomei), The Equalizer (one episode with William Sadler, another with David Andrews and Robert Joy, both starring Keith Szarabajka), L.A. Law (starring Corbin Bernsen and Larry Drake, in an episode with Ethan Phillips), The X-Files, Law & Order (two episodes, including one with Kevin Conway and Tim Ransom), and Law & Order: Trial by Jury (with Bebe Neuwirth and Allan Miller). She also had recurring roles on Dawson's Creek and The Practice. On the latter series, she worked with the likes of Robert Curtis Brown, Bill Cobbs, Gregory Itzin, Richard McGonagle, Leon Russom, and George D. Wallace.

Her earliest feature film credits are the films Heaven's Gate (co-starring Brad Dourif and Terry O'Quinn) and Year of the Dragon (with Jack Kehler). She played the mother of Tom Cruise's character in Oliver Stone's acclaimed 1989 Vietnam War drama Born on the Fourth of July, which also featured Reg E. Cathey, Bob Gunton, Ed Lauter, Mark Moses, Richard Poe, and Mike Starr. Her other films include Little Nikita (1988, with Richard Lynch) and Snow Falling on Cedars (1999, with James Cromwell and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Her made-for-TV movies include 1989's Cross of Fire (with Dakin Matthews, Richard Riehle, Stephen Root, William Schallert, and Keith Szarabajka), 1990's Murder in Black and White (with Tom Wright) and Murder Times Seven (with Andreas Katsulas), 1991's Guilty Until Proven Innocent (co-starring Mark Metcalf) and In a Child's Name (co-starring Jeff Allin, James Cromwell, Louise Fletcher and David Huddleston), and 1996's Shattered Mind (with Brett Cullen and Richard Herd).

More recently she wrote and directed the short drama Jesus, Maria (2010) and appeared as Aunt Eller in the television musical Oklahoma! (2011).