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Herta Ware (9 June 191715 August 2005; age 88) was an actress who played Yvette Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode "Where No One Has Gone Before". She filmed her scene on Wednesday 12 August 1987 at Paramount Stage 9.

She was the mother of fellow Next Generation guest star Ellen Geer, and grandmother of Star Trek: Picard guest actress Willow Geer.

She was born Herta Schwartz to a Hungarian Jewish actor, László Schwartz and famous American violinist and composer Helen Ware. Her maternal uncle was Harold Ware, leader of an extensive Soviet spy ring in the US and her maternal grandmother was Ella Reeve Bloor, co-founder of the Communist Labor Party of America.

She was married to actor Will Geer from 1938 to 1954. The couple had three children, including the aforementioned Ellen Geer, and despite their divorce, remained close friends for the rest of their lives. Ware later married actor David Marshall, with who she had one child, actress Melora Marshall.

Ware started her career as a guitarist and folk singer in the Washington DC area, before moving to New York City in the early 1930s to pursue an acting career. She made her Broadway debut in the leftist play "Let Freedom Ring" in 1935, co-starring her future husband, Will Geer. The couple appeared together in several other plays, including "Bury the Dead", "Prelude", and "Six O'Clock Theatre". They moved to California and settled in Santa Monica in the early 1940s, where Geer began a Hollywood career as a character actor.

However, in the early 1950s, both Ware and her husband were blacklisted as communist sympathizers by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and were unable to find acting work. They bought a land in the Topanga Canyon, where they worked as farmers. They later established an independent theatre, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum on their property.

Despite her extensive theatre background, Ware only made her screen acting debut in 1974 at the age of fifty-seven in the film The Memory of Us (with Charlene Polite), which she also wrote. In the next three decades, she worked steadily in films and television, usually playing supporting roles of sweet elderly lady characters. She is perhaps best known for her part as Rosie in Cocoon (1985, with Clint Howard, cinematography by Don Peterman and music by James Horner).

She had a role in 2010 (1984) as Jessie Bowman, Astronaut David Bowman's mother. The film featured make-ups by Michael Westmore. She also appeared in films such as Critters 2 (1988, with Scott Grimes and Sam Anderson), Top Dog (1995, with Clyde Kusatsu), Species (1995, with Jordan Lund and David Selburg), Practical Magic (1998, with Ellen Geer), and Cruel Intentions (1999, with Louise Fletcher).

She also guested in TV shows such as Cagney & Lacey (directed by Reza Badiyi), The Golden Girls (with Karl Wiedergott), ER (with Liz Vassey, Douglas Rowe, and Danny Nero), and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (hosted by Jonathan Frakes).

Ware passed away at her Topanga home on August 15, 2005, due to complication of Parkinson's disease.

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