Texas-born Fred Carson (5 November 1923 – 31 July 2001; age 77) was a Hollywood actor and stunt performer. Among his acting credits were two appearances on Star Trek: The Original Series, the first playing the "First Denevan" in the first season episode "Operation -- Annihilate!". He filmed his scene on Wednesday 15 February 1967 on location at the TRW Space and Defense Park in Redondo Beach, California. His second appearance was in the third season episode "Spock's Brain" as a Morg "creature". He filmed his scenes on Wednesday 10 July 1968 at Paramount Stage 3.
Carson also made acting appearances on such television shows as Gunsmoke, The Munsters, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, and the Susan Howard/David Huddleston series Petrocelli. He was also seen in such films as Hellfire (1949, with Paul Fix), Rider from Tucson (1950; with Sam Bagley), The Charge of Feather River (1953), Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966, starring Elvis Presley, Marianna Hill, Irene Tsu, and Julie Parrish), and Skin Game (1971, with George D. Wallace and Jason Wingreen). With the exception of the latter, Carson also performed stunts in each of these films.
Carson was first and foremost a stunt performer. In this capacity, he worked on such series as 77 Sunset Strip, I Spy, and McCloud. From 1956 through 1960, Carson doubled for fellow Original Series guest star Michael Ansara on the series Broken Arrow, on which Ansara played the role of Chief Cochise. Carson also performed stunts for an extensive number of feature films, including Fort Apache (1948), Viva Zapata! (1952), The Robe (1953), The Wild One (1953), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), The Egyptian (1954), Man Without a Star (1955), The Buccaneer (1958), Last Train from Gun Hill (1959), Send Me No Flowers (1964), The Rare Breed (1966), There Was a Crooked Man... (1970), and F.I.S.T. (1978). In his long career, he served as stunt double for such famous stars as Marlon Brando, Victor Mature, and Anthony Quinn.
Carson died in North Hollywood, California, in 2001. He was 77 years old. He had retired some twenty years prior; the last project he performed stunts for was the 1978 TV movie The Bastard, which starred Ian Abercrombie, Kim Cattrall, John Colicos, John de Lancie, Ike Eisenmann, James Gregory, Alex Henteloff, and Original Series star William Shatner.