Patti Yasutake, best known to TV audiences for her role as Nurse Alyssa Ogawa on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has died after a long battle with cancer, TVLine has confirmed. She was 70 years old.
Her longtime friend and manager Kyle Fritz confirmed her passing in a statement to our sister site Deadline, writing: “Patti was my first client when I began over 30 years ago. We enjoyed every day we got to work together, and I will miss her spirit talent and tenacity but most of all her friendship.”
Yasutake appeared in 16 episodes of Star Trek: TNG across four seasons. She made her first appearance in the Season 4 episode “Future Imperfect.” She reprised Nurse Ogawa in the feature films Star Trek: Generations (1994) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and lent her voice to the video game Star Trek: Armada II (2001).
Her most recent role came in Netflix’s Emmy-winning limited series BEEF, on which she co-starred as Ali Wong’s disapproving mother-in-law Fumi Nakai. Additional TV credits included episodes of The Closer, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, Knots Landing, Living Single, Mr. Belvedere, Murphy Brown, Picket Fences, Scarecrow and Mrs. King and T.J. Hooker.
On the big screen, Yasutake had a supporting role in Ron Howard’s 1986 comedy Gung Ho. Later that same year, she reprised the part of Umeki in the short-lived ABC comedy of the same name. She also appeared in multiple made-for-TV movies throughout the 1990s, including Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991), Fatal Friendship (1991), Blind Spot (1993), Donato and Daughter (1993), Lush Life (1993), Dangerous Intentions (1995), Abandoned and Deceived (1995) and The Road to Galveston (1996).
