Tania Lemani (born 17 March 1939; age 86) is a former actress and dancer who played Kara in the Star Trek: The Original Series second season episode "Wolf in the Fold". She filmed her scenes on Monday 3 July 1967 at Desilu Stage 10.
Lemani was born Tatiana Soleimani-Zadeh in Iran to Russian parents. When she was thirteen years old, her family came to the United States where Lemani began her career with a classical ballet dance troupe, but when she traveled to Las Vegas in search of more work, she was offered a job as a belly dancer, not a ballet dancer. She ultimately got her own show in Vegas, as well as offers to dance on television and film. She also began receiving more serious acting roles after a member of her show's audience offered her a role in the pilot for Alexander the Great, starring William Shatner in the title role (although the pilot failed to be picked up as a series). Regardless, Lemani retired from acting in 1969.
One of her earliest film appearances came in A Global Affair (1968, featuring Nehemiah Persoff and fellow Original Series guest actress Barbara Bouchet). She went on to appear in such films as Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (in which she, Sabrina Scharf, Victor Tayback, and George D. Wallace appear unbilled, along with billed actors Michael Strong and Phillip Pine) and Gambit (1966, with Roger C. Carmel, John Abbott, Arnold Moss, and Victor Tayback). She also had a supporting role in Joseph Sargent's The Hell with Heroes (1968, with William Marshall and Sid Haig, and written by Harold Livingston). In total, she had roles in nearly twenty films.
On television, she has appeared on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (with Arlene Martel), I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart (with Karen Steele), McHale's Navy (1966, latter with David Opatoshu and Nick Borgani), It Takes a Thief (with Nancy Kovack and her "Wolf in the Fold" co-star Charles Dierkop), and The Flying Nun (with Michael Pataki and Sandra Smith), among others. In addition, she has performed in dozens of stage productions.
Tania Lemani speaks English, Russian, and Persian fluently. She also knows some Spanish, Armenian, Ukrainian, and Italian. She has also produced her own belly dancing video, "Bellysize with Tanya."
External links[]
- Tanya Lemani George – official site
- Tania Lemani at the Internet Movie Database