Star Trek

Kiley in 1978

Playing the bombastic genius Gideon Seyetik in DS9’s “Second Sight” came easy to Richard Kiley, and with good reason: he did shoot to fame, after all, as Don Quixote in the original Broadway production of Man of La Mancha, making his the first version of the song “The Impossible Dream.”

His other notable big-screen turns came in Phenomonon, Patrch Adams, and even the voice of the tour guide in Jurassic Park and of The Cosmos in Howard the Duck. It was a voice often in demand for documentaries, and in 1991 Kiley shared a Western Heritage “Bronze Wrangler Award” for his narration of a cougar nature film.

A 1922 native of Chicago, Ill., Kiley won Tony awards as lead actor in a musical for Man of La Mancha, as well as the earlier show Redhead. On the small screen, his resumé yielded Emmy and Golden Globe trophies for work in the ABC mini-series The Thorn Birds and as lead in NBC’s short-lived A Year In The Life; he also added a 1994 Emmy for his guest-star role in Picket Fences. Barely five years after that win and his DS9 appearance, Kiley died in 1997 of a bone marrow disease just short of his 77th birthday in Warwick, N.Y.