Gene Dynarski

Balding, often moustachioed Brooklyn-born Eugene Dynarski was a prolific character actor of Polish ancestry. He moved to California in 1957 after serving in the U.S. Navy and learned his craft at Los Angeles City College, Harbor College and UCLA. Obtaining acting work via renowned casting director Lynn Stalmaster, he first appeared on the screen in 1963, frequently personifying characters of Slavic background with names like Pollick, Barmak, Krodak or Kowalski. He had a particularly good line in villains which he made all the more menacing with his outwardly calm but intense manner. He portrayed Stalin to critical acclaim on the stage in a 1987 production of David Pownall's "Master Class" (as well as providing the dictator's voice for Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996)). Dynarski made appearances in both Star Trek (1966) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), the latter featuring him as a starbase commander. Very much a regular contributor to the science fiction genre, he also played Egghead's henchman Benedict in Batman (1966), donned one of Paul Zastupnevich's monster heads as a sea centaur in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), played a malevolent prison warden in Land of the Giants (1968) and an ill-fated hunter in The X-Files (1993) who falls victim to a bat-human hybrid monster. Dynarski also had small parts in the Steven Spielberg productions Duel (1971) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). In 1979, he established the Gene Dynarski Theater near Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles which remained in operation until the 1990s. Dynarski retired from screen acting in 2003.