Virginia Aldridge (born 1 September 1938; age 86) (citation needed • edit) is the former actress who appeared as Lt. Karen Tracy in the Star Trek: The Original Series second season episode "Wolf in the Fold". This was her last known television appearance. She filmed her scenes on Thursday 29 June 1967 at Desilu Stage 10.
Biography[]
Aldridge began her acting career as a dancer, with her first on-screen appearance appearing in Guys and Dolls (1955, Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra). During her time as a dancer during the late 1950s, she roomed with future fellow Star Trek actress Sally Kellerman, while Aldridge worked as one of the Polka Parade Dancers on Dick Sinclair's Polka Parade. (Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life, p. 33) It was also during this time that she was engaged first to actor Peter Brown in 1957, before she soon after, married actor Richard Hartunian (who later died in 1972); together they had one son, Ion (who later died in 2012).
The bulk of Aldridge's work was through the late 1950s, included such television appearances as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett (1957 & 1958 with Dave Cadiente) and Father Knows Best (1959, with Jane Wyatt and Elinor Donahue), as well as several television Westerns, including Cheyenne (1958), Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1958), Wagon Train (1958, with Fred Carson and Rudy Doucette), The Rifleman (1958, with Paul Fix and Bill Quinn), and Death Valley Days (1960)
She also had roles in High School Big Shot (1959, with Stanley Adams) and Riot in Juvenile Prison (1959, with John Hoyt).
Her roles during the 1960s were limited to two appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 & 1965, the latter with Nick Borgani) and The Gnome-Mobile (1967, with Hal Baylor).
Following her appearance on Star Trek, Aldridge retired from acting, and would remain so for nearly a decade, as she took up song writing with television writer Lynne Farr, one song was copyrighted in 1965, five in 1970, and three more in 1971. [1][2][3]
Aldridge returned to the business as a writer for the series McMillan & Wife (1976), Dallas (1978), Nurse (1981), Fame (1981 & 1982), Knight Rider (1983 & 1984), The Twilight Zone (1987, which earned her a Writers Guild Nomination [4]), and Beauty and the Beast (1988-89).
In 2019, she was scheduled to appear at the Hollywood Show Los Angeles convention [5], as well as the Star Trek Las Vegas convention, but was unable to attend the latter. [6]