Belli, Melvin
Star Trek: The Original Series
Episode: TOS 060 - And the Children Shall Lead
Belli in 1970
Among all of Star Trek’s third season “stunt cat” guest stars on NBC, one of the oddest to be cast was hardly an actor: legendary San Francisco celebrity and personal injury attorney Melvin Belli played Gorgan, the alien using an unsettling “Friendly Angel” persona in “And the Children Shall Lead.” Belli brought along his young son Caesar too, seen in the episode as “Steve O’Connel.”
As one of the most brilliant, controversial and colorful legal personalities of the era, Belli enjoyed such screen appearances but had only a few others. He wrote over 72 books and articles in his career, won a total of over $600 million in combined settlements for clients, and represented clients from Zsa Zsa Gabor and Errol Flynn to Chuck Berry, Muhammed Ali, the Rolling Stones, Mae West and Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan. After a long career the “King of Torts” died of complications from pancreatic cancer in 1996 at age 88.
