Veteran Star Trek Actor Malachi Throne Leaves Multi-Faceted Legacy

Character actor Malachi Throne passed away on March 13th at the age of 84, leaving behind a legacy which includes appearances you may have never realized were him.

Throughout his long career in television, movies, and the stage, Throne had a tendency to appear in roles in a very inconspicuous way. In some cases, he even went so far as to have his name listed in the credits as simply "?".

One major highlight of his career was his appearance, or more accurately, multiple appearances, on Star Trek. Over the course of his career, he appeared on Star Trek a total of five times, in five entirely different and unique roles.

No doubt you remember Throne from the role of Commodore Jose I. Mendez from the episode "The Menagerie."

What you may not realize is Throne also provided the voice for this character, "The Keeper," in the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage."

When segments of "The Cage" were reused for the episode "The Menagerie," Throne's voice work was electronically altered and reused.

Throne would later join Star Trek again and work closely once more with Leonard Nimoy in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Reunification."

Later, Throne would go on to play the role of a Klingon in the fan made Star Trek film "In Harm's Way."

There remains another famous role portrayed by Throne for which you never actually saw his face and never saw his name in the credits. The famous role was that of "False Face" in the 1966 television series "Batman." Throughout the episode, Throne wore a semi-transparent mask leaving his face unrecognizable.

When the credits rolled, they simply read "? as False Face." Eventually, Throne's name would come to be  credited at the end of the episode "Holy Rat Race." As it turns out, the character of "False Face" was a substitution for Clint Eastwood's suggested concept of "Two-Face."