"Spock. Parted from me and
never parted.
Never and always touching and touched. I
await you."
- as T'Pring on Star
Trek: Amok Time (1967)
Martel appeared on The
Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Twilight Zone: Twenty Two (1961),
under her birth name of "Arline Sax".
Arlene
Martel (April 14th, 1936 – August 12th, 2014), born Arline
Greta Sax, was an American actress, writer, and acting coach. Prior
to 1964, she was frequently billed as Arline Sax, Arlene Sax or Tasha Martel.
In 1962, Martel made her first of two
appearances on Perry Mason, as Fiona Cregan in "The Case of the
Absent Artist". Later, she guest starred as Sandra Dunkel in
"The Case of the Dead Ringer" (1966) when Raymond Burr
played a dual role, that of Mason and as the actual murderer, Grimes.
Martel appeared in the Star Trek episode "Amok Time" (1967
right) as T'Pring and the original The Outer Limits episode
"Demon with a Glass Hand" (1964).
Martel played the princess Sarafina on
Have Gun – Will Travel, the evil witch Malvina on Bewitched, the
French Underground contact Tiger in five episodes of Hogan's Heroes,
a female cosmonaut on I Dream of Jeannie, a Hungarian immigrant Magda
on The Fugitive episode "The Blessings of Liberty" (1966),
and, memorably, as the nurse who repeatedly utters the sinister
phrase "Room for one more, Honey!" at the entrance to a
hospital morgue and as the stewardess at the door of a doomed
airplane in the Twilight Zone episode "Twenty-Two". She
also appeared in the season-one episode of The Twilight Zone
"What You Need" (below).
Martel was billed (as Arline Sax) as a
featured actress in the episode of Route 66 called "The
Newborn", in which she gives birth. She also made guest
appearances on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (above), The Untouchables,
Mission: Impossible, appeared as Asastia in Here Come the Brides, The
Wild Wild West (below), Battlestar Galactica, the 1968 movie Angels
from Hell, two appearances on The Monkees (below middle), and
supporting performance in the adult comedy film Chatterbox (1977),
also known as Virginia the Talking Vagina it co-stared Irwin Corey
and Rip Taylor. It was poorly received by audiences.
Martel played Interpol agent Violette in
The Six Million Dollar Man episode "The Last Fourth of
July", and appeared as a featured actress in the Gunsmoke
episode titled "The Squaw" (1975). Martel also appeared
multiple times on Hogan's Heroes (above 1965 - 1971) playing an
Underground agent named "Tiger". In 1974, Martel was billed
as "Tasha Martelle", playing secretary "Marty
Bach" in an episode of The Rockford Files.
Arlene Martel in (above from the top left
to right) I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, Mission: Impossible,
Columbo, Bewitched and Here Come The Brides.
Martel
received top billing when she starred as the commandant in charge of
the Russian road crew in Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1978), although it
was only a bit part lasting less than five minutes of the 97 minute
movie. She also received credit in a font so large that it was almost
twice as large as that used for Reggie Nalder or Michael Pataki, the
leads who occupied most of the screen throughout the movie.
She appeared in the Star Trek webisode
"Of Gods and Men" in the final scene as a Vulcan priestess
initiating a marriage ceremony between Uhura and Vulcan native Stonn
(a character from the episode "Amok Time", played by
original actor Lawrence Montaigne).
Martel played Gloria, mistress of murder
victim Tony Goodland (Bradford Dillman), in the Columbo episode
"The Greenhouse Jungle" (1972).
Martel semi-retired from acting in the mid
1980s, and only worked sporadically after that. She appeared in
several episodes of TV and in some un-released TV pilots in the early
2000s. She stated in interviews that even in her early career, she
got most of her work via word of mouth and not through talent agents.
In her later years, she often remarked, "I don't have a good
agent who will get me the plum roles." Before her death, Martel
was one of the narrators for the 2015 documentary film Unity.
Martel attended the (then) Performing Arts
High School in New York, on which the movie "Fame" was
based, graduating in 1953. She later studied method acting and was a
member of The Actors Studio. She remained friends with Sidney Lumet
and Anthony Quinn throughout their lifetimes.
Martel lived on the west side of Los
Angeles when she first moved there, and for a time lived on Martel
Ave. in West Hollywood. She appropriated the street name, and became
known as Arlene Martel. During her third marriage, she became known off-screen
as Tasha Martel Schoen.
Martel
married and divorced three times. Her first marriage was to Robert
Palmer. Her second marriage was to actor Jerry Douglas. Her third was
to Matthew Schoen. She had three children: Adam Palmer, Avra Douglas,
and journalist and designer Jod Kaftan, and had three grandchildren.
In her later years, Martel wrote a
screenplay, "Whisper Into My Good Ear", based upon the
one-act play of the same title by William Hanley. She had also begun
work on a second screenplay, "Mrs. Dally Has a Lover," also
by Hanley. Unfortunately, neither was produced, although Edward James
Olmos was slated to direct "Whisper Into My Good Ear."
Maximilian Schell and Max Von Sydow were slated to play the leads.
Anthony Quinn was her original choice to play one of the leads and
was learning the lines shortly before his death.
Martel dated James Dean and Cary Grant.
She appeared in the Robert Altman film "The James Dean
Story" (1957) and did many interviews in the years following his
death for such networks as the BBC.
She was a regular at Star Trek Conventions
worldwide from 1972 to 2014.
In 2010, Martel and Jeff Minniti
self-published a book called "Mixed Messages", which was in
fact an extensive collection of emails exchanged between them.
Minniti was a fan of Martel's who contacted her some years before her
death and they struck up a friendship. Martel had written her
autobiography several years before her death, but it has not yet been published.
On August 12th, 2014, Martel died from
complications of a heart attack at a hospital in Santa Monica,
California. She had suffered breast cancer in her later years,
although this was reportedly not the cause of her death. She lived in
Santa Monica for many years. She is survived by her children and two
of her three grandchildren.
Untitled
Selected Arlene
Martel TVography
Banacek
- The Three Million Dollar Piracy (1973)
Battlestar Galactica
- The Long Patrol (1978)
Behind Closed Doors
- Flight to Freedom (1958)
Ben Casey
- My Good Friend Krikor (1961)
Berrenger's
- Overture (1985)
Bewitched
- How Not to Lose Your Head to Henry VIII (1971)
Breaking Point
- My Hands Are Clean (1964)
Brothers & Sisters
- A Righteous Kiss (2010)
Bus Stop
- Cry to Heaven (1962)
Cain's Hundred
- The Manipulator: Raymond Cruz (1962)
Cheyenne
- Indian Gold (1962)
Columbo
- A Friend in Deed (1974)
- Double Exposure (1973, credit only)
- The Greenhouse Jungle (1972)
Death Valley Days
- Human Sacrifice (1960)
The Delphi Bureau
- The Terror Broker Project (1973)
The Detectives
- An Eye for an Eye (1961)
- Life in the Balance (1960)
The Doris Day Show
- The Sorrow of Sangapur (1972)
The Flying Nun
- Tonio's Mother (1968)
The Fugitive
- The Blessings of Liberty (1966)
General Electric Theater
- The Book of Silence (1960)
Gunslinger
- The Diehards (1961)
Gunsmoke
- The Squaw (1975)
Have Gun - Will Travel
- The Princess and the Gunfighter (1961)
Here Come the Brides
- To the Victor (1970)
Hogan's Heroes
- Operation Tiger (1970)
- The Defector (1969)
- Never Play Cards with Strangers (1968)
- Heil Klink (1967)
- A Tiger Hunt in Paris: Part 1 and 2 (1966)
- Hold That Tiger (1965)
Hong Kong
- The Hunted (1961)
I Dream of Jeannie
- Russian Roulette (1965)
It Takes a Thief
- Guess Who's Coming to Rio (1969)
Iron Horse
- Hellcat (1966)
Knots Landing
- Homecoming (1983)
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
- The King of Knaves Affair (1964)
Mannix
- The Danford File (1973)
- Murder Revisited (1970)
McCloud
- A Little Plot at Tranquil Valley (1972)
Mission: Impossible
- Terror (1970)
The Monkees
- Monstrous Monkee Mash (1968)
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cool (1966)
My Favorite Martian
- Martin of the Movies (1965)
The New Breed
- The Man with the Other Face (1962)
The Outer Limits
- Demon with a Glass Hand (1964)
Perry Mason
- The Case of the Dead Ringer (1966)
- The Case of the Absent Artist (1962)
Petrocelli
- A Very Lonely Lady (1974)
Playhouse 90
- In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1960)
The Rebel
- The Hunted (1960)
The Restless Gun
- A Bell for Santo Domingo (1958)
Richie Brockelman, Private Eye
- The Framing of Perfect Sydney (1978)
The Rockford Files
- Trouble in Chapter 17 (1977)
The Rookies
- Vendetta (1974)
Route 66
- The Newborn (1961) ... Kawna Ivy
- Legacy for Lucia (1960)
The Six Million Dollar Man
- The Last of the Fourth of Julys (1974)
Star Trek
- Amok Time (1967)
Target: The Corruptors
- The Million Dollar Dump (1961)
The Twilight Zone
- Twenty Two (1961)
- What You Need (1959)
The Untouchables
- The Genna Brothers (1961)
- A Seat on the Fence (1960)
This Man Dawson
- Safe Haven (1960)
The Wild Wild West
- The Night of the Circus of Death (1967)
The Young and the Restless
- as Mavis MacDonald (1986)
Arlene
Martel (April 14th, 1936 – August 12th, 2014), born Arline
Greta Sax, was an American actress, writer, and acting coach. Prior
to 1964, she was frequently billed as Arline Sax, Arlene Sax or Tasha Martel.
Martel
received top billing when she starred as the commandant in charge of
the Russian road crew in Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1978), although it
was only a bit part lasting less than five minutes of the 97 minute
movie. She also received credit in a font so large that it was almost
twice as large as that used for Reggie Nalder or Michael Pataki, the
leads who occupied most of the screen throughout the movie.
Martel
married and divorced three times. Her first marriage was to Robert
Palmer. Her second marriage was to actor Jerry Douglas. Her third was
to Matthew Schoen. She had three children: Adam Palmer, Avra Douglas,
and journalist and designer Jod Kaftan, and had three grandchildren.
