William H. O'Brien

William H. O'Brien was an actor who appeared as a Columbia survivor in the first pilot for , , and subsequently in archive footage that appeared in .
Born to Irish parents in Peak Hill, New South Wales, O'Brien, along with his wife and young daughter, immigrated to the United States from Australia in late 1919; they had a second daughter a year later. Within two weeks of arriving in the US, he began working in the motion picture industry as a "film exchanger". (Sources: California Arriving Passenger and Crew List (1882-1959); 1920 US Federal Census)
O'Brien's oldest daughter, Joan, was, from 1944 to 1968, a casting agent and worked in talent development with Paramount, Janus, and Warner Brothers, who "discovered" such talents as and . In 1968, she married her second husband, director . Stevens directed , clips and homages of which have appeared several times on Star Trek. O'Brien's youngest daughter, , appeared in at least one film as a child actress.
Represented by Central Casting, O'Brien amassed nearly 650 film and, much later, television appearances – often as a butler or waiter – in his fifty year career. His earliest known television appearance was in I Love Lucy (1952; directed by Marc Daniels, and with Lucille Ball). During the late 1950s and early 1960s he mostly appeared in Westerns, and during the 1960s appeared in the background of several "classic" television shows of the decade, including The Twilight Zone (1963; with Sam Bagley and Joe Evans), and Mission: Impossible. His final known acting role was an uncredited appearance in the film The Todd Killings (1971; with Meg Foster, William Lucking, George Murdock, and Jason Wingreen).
== External link ==
* 
Category:Performers
Category:TOS performers