Actor Charles Dierkop Has Died at 87
Image: Paramount / NASA
He was probably best known for his role as Detective Pete Royster in Police Woman, starring Angie Dickinson, but he made the rounds in film and television, often playing the heavy. Actor Charles Dierkop died Sunday after a heart attack and bout of pneumonia, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 87.
Dierkop is known to Star Trek fans for playing the Argelian Morla in Star Trek: The Original Series’ season two episode, “Wolf in the Fold.” Outside of Star Trek, Dierkop appeared in television series and films going back to uncredited roles in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Hustler, in 1961. Credits came his way after that with appearances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Andy Griffith Show, Batman, Adam-12, Mission: Impossible, Gunsmoke, and MacGyver, among many others.
Dierkop was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin and dropped out of high school to enlist with the Marines. He studied acting at Philadelphia’s American Foundation of Dramatic Arts, with the help of the GI Bill, and with director, actor, and teacher, Lee Strasberg, at The Actors Studio in New York.
Please join us in offering our condolences to the family and friends of Charles Richard Dierkop.
David is a contributing writer for Daily Star Trek News on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. He is a librarian, baseball fan, and book and movie buff. He has also written for American Libraries and Skeptical Inquirer. David also enjoys diverse music, but leans toward classical and jazz. He plays a mean radio.
