William Schallert, a veteran character actor best known for portraying Patty Duke’s father on The Patty Duke Show, died on May 8 at his home in the Huntington Palisades. He was 93.
He was born in Los Angeles on July 6, 1922. His father was Los Angeles Times film and drama editor Edwin Schallert and his mother publicist Elaz Schallert.
Schallert attended UCLA with the idea of becoming a composer, but instead became active in theater. In 1946, he and actor Sydney Chaplin founded the Hollywood Circle Theater, where he appeared in a production of W. Somerset Maugham’s Rain, directed by Charlie Chaplin.
He married Rosemarie Diann Waggner (aka actress Leah Waggner) on February 26, 1949. The couple had four sons: William (1949), Edwin (1952), Mark (1954), and Brendan (1961).
Schallert and family moved to Britain in 1952, because he had a Fulbright Fellowship to study British Repertory Theater. He was a guest lecturer at Oxford.
The long-time Pacific Palisades resident was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979 to 1981.
His career spanned seven decades, and he won an Obie award for playing the judge in The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.
Star Trek fans fell in love with Schallert in 1967 when he played Nilz Baris, the undersecretary in charge of agricultural affairs for the United Federation of Planets. The episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” is often cited by fans and critics as one of the best episodes of the original Star Trek series.
His television credits included appearances on Zorro, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Maverick, Philip Marlowe, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, The Untouchable, The Rifleman, The Andy Griffith Show, Surfside 6, Bonanza, Perry Mason, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show and Mission: Impossible.
Most recently Schallert appeared in a 2014 episode of the sitcom 2 Broke Girls.
He is predeceased by his wife and survived by his sons and seven grandchildren.
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