Star Trek

Keith in 1995

In one of the last 10 roles of his long career, Brian Keith turned in a memorable performance in his trademark crusty way as Mullibok, the Bajoran farmer who refuses to budge in DS9’s “Progress.”

Born Robert Alba Keith in 1921 in Bayonne, N.J., the actor first appeared in a silent movie at the age of 3, was raised by divorced but active show-biz parents, and then detoured to a Marine Corps stint in World War II as a dive bomber pilot-gunner, winning an Air Medal. After roles in stage and early TV, he first won acclaim as a father figure in Disney’s The Parent Trap, then landed his biggest exposure ever as Uncle Bill Davis, single dad to his adopted nieces and nephew, on CBS’s popular sitcom Family Affair, which netted him three Emmy nominations. Keith's kid chemistry worked once again as he played Hawaiian pediatrician Sean Jamieson on The Brian Keith Show, or Little People. Later TV audiences knew him as Judge Hardcastle in the co-title role of popular actioner Hardcastle and McCormick.

Keith's films include the classic The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, plus Meteor, Young Guns, Centennial, Those Calloways, and Rough Riders, his last film. Suffering from emphysema and lung cancer in later years as well as depression, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home in 1997, almost five years after filming his DS9 role. In 2008 Keith received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.