James Gregory

James Gregory was the actor who played Tristan Adams in the first season episode . He filmed his scenes between Monday and Wednesday at Desilu Stage 10.
Born in The Bronx, New York, Gregory was best known for a long career as a character actor in theater, film, and television which lasted from the 1930s into the 1980s. He was equally adept at comedy and drama, and his stock-in-trade was playing authority figures – often authority figures with some sort of serious flaw. 
Originally a stockbroker's assistant on Wall Street, by 1935 Gregory had turned an acting hobby into a career. With 1939's Key Largo he moved to Broadway, where he acted in numerous productions for the next sixteen years. 
In 1942, Gregory enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served from 1942 to 1945. He was advanced to petty officer first class and held the rank of yeoman. After the war's end, Gregory was discharged and returned to acting.
Around 1955, he moved from stage to film and television. He appeared in about fifty movies. He played the buffoonish, Joseph McCarthy-like witch-hunting senator in the 1962 political psycho-drama The Manchurian Candidate, which also featured future fellow Original Series guest actors Reggie Nalder, Leslie Parrish, and Whit Bissell. He was Paul Wilkins in Call to Danger (1968, with William Smithers and Laurel Goodwin), and General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). The film also featured Jeff Corey in the cast, and featured a musical score by Leonard Rosenman. Gregory took over a role originally written for Orson Welles.
Gregory made over a hundred television guest appearances, including the pilot for The Wild Wild West, in which he appeared with Nehemiah Persoff. Six years prior to his guest appearance on Trek, Gregory had appeared with William Shatner in a Rod Serling-penned episode of Playhouse 90 entitled "A Town Has Turned to Dust". That episode also featured Clegg Hoyt.
In addition to his many TV guest appearances, Gregory had four regular series roles. One of these – the irascible Inspector Luger on the 1975-82 ABC TV comedy – became his defining role. Ironically, the role of Luger was loosely based on Barney Ruditsky, a former New York City policeman (and an acquaintance of Barney Miller co-creator Danny Arnold) – and Gregory had actually starred as Ruditsky in the 1961 series The Lawless Years.
Gregory retired from acting around 1987 and died of natural causes in Sedona, Arizona, a few months shy of his ninety-first birthday. His widow, Anne, died at the end of 2005.
== External links ==
* – official web site
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