William Schallert

Overview

The son of Edwin Schallert, drama editor of the "Los Angeles Times" and the dean of West Coast critics, William Schallert became interested in an acting career while at UCLA in 1942. After graduation, he became involved with the Circle Theater (eventually becoming one of its owners) and made his film debut in The Foxes of Harrow (1947). He then became ubiquitous in movies and TV ever since, and from 1979 to 1981, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. He stayed active with SAG projects and said he never gave retirement a thought.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Weaver <TomWeavr@aol.com>

Of Schallert's myriad movie and TV roles, he has said the one individual role for which he still receives the most recognition is as Nilz Baris, the Federation Undersecretary of Agricultural Affairs, in the Star Trek (1966) episode The Trouble with Tribbles (1967).
Went to high school with Alan Hale Jr., Nanette Fabray and Mickey Rooney.
Died just over a month after the death of his on-screen daughter, Patty Duke. They also both served as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
Is also a composer, pianist and singer.
Martin Lane, Schallert's character on The Patty Duke Show (1963), was ranked #39 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue].

I believe you shouldn't become an actor unless you need to. Unless you have no choice about it. Liking--even loving--acting is not enough. You have to need to act.
I've never been single-minded in my pursuit of acting as a career. Whatever it was that got me hired and kept me working was probably just me.
[on Patty Duke] When I think of her, she's family as far as I'm concerned. We had a very close relationship. Whenever I saw her it was like greeting one of my kids. She just had a wonderful quality and I got to know her over the years and she was admirable in a lot of ways. She really did her best to raise her own kids and she certainly had very little help in her own life to do that, but she was very mature and she did a lot of growing up very fast. People take that kind of thing for granted far too easily, and she doesn't get the credit she deserves for that.
[on Patty Duke going public with her bipolar disorder] She was one of the pioneers who stuck her neck out so to speak to say "here I am" at a time where people didn't do that. She had the courage to do it and she did a lot of good, I think, by doing that and by the rest of her life by example.