Michael J. Pollard

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Michael J. Pollard
Birth name:	Michael John Pollack, Jr.
Date of birth:	30 May 1939
Place of birth:	Passaic, New Jersey, USA
Date of death:	20 November 2019
Place of death:	Los Angeles, California, USA
Roles:	Guest star
Character(s):	Jahn

Michael John Pollack, Jr. (30 May 1939 – 20 November 2019; age 80), better known as Michael J. Pollard and also affectionately referred to as "Spud Pollard", was the actor who played Jahn in the Star Trek: The Original Series first season episode "Miri".

Career

Pollard has been acting since 1958. A character actor, he has accumulated almost a hundred appearances in movies and television series since then.

In 1967, Pollard earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role of C.W. Moss in the film Bonnie and Clyde. He also earned two Golden Globe nominations for that role, one for Best Supporting Actor and one for Most Promising Newcomer. In addition, his performance in Bonnie and Clyde won Pollard a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.

Also in 1967 he and Angelique Pettyjohn appeared together in an episode of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. ("The U.N.C.L.E. Samurai Affair").

Michael Pollard died from cardiac arrest on November 20, 2019.[1]

Appearance in Star Trek

Pollard's character in "Miri" was scripted to be between fourteen and fifteen years of age, yet Pollard himself was twenty seven years old at the time, only a few years younger than the main characters in the episode, and about the same age as the actors portraying security guards. Despite such a vast difference in age, Pollard's "baby-faced" looks had earned him the role. Pollard had previously been considered for the role of Charles Evans in "Charlie X". (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One, p. 196)

Filmography

• The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966, with Brian Keith, Andrea Dromm, Theodore Bikel, and Don Keefer)
• Lost in Space episode "The Magic Mirror" (1966)
• Roxanne (1987, with Steve Martin)
• Scrooged (1988, with Alfre Woodard and John Glover)
• Tango & Cash (1989, with Marc Alaimo, Roy Brocksmith, Teri Hatcher, Clint Howard, Glenn Morshower, and Phil Rubenstein)
• Superboy episodes titled "Meet Mr. Mxyzptlk" and "Mr. and Mrs. Superboy" (1989, with Sherman Howard)
• Split Second (1992, with Kim Cattrall)
• The Odyssey (1997 TV movie, with Vanessa Williams)
• Merchants of Venus (aka A Dirty Little Business) (1998, with Robert Easton, Charles Dierkop, and Helen Cates)
• House of 1,000 Corpses (2003, with Sid Haig, Rainn Wilson, and Tom Towles)

External links

• Michael J. Pollard at Wikipedia
• Michael J. Pollard at the Internet Movie Database