‘Star Trek’ and ‘The Twilight Zone’ actress Antoinette Bower breathes her last at 93
Antoinette Bower, beloved Star Trek and The Twilight Zone actress, has passed away. She was 93.
Bower died peacefully on April 30 at a retirement home in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, according to her longtime friend Carlotta Glackin, who confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.
Born in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1932 to a German mother and an English father, Bower built a television career spanning nearly four decades. She became a familiar face by bagging roles in some of the most iconic American series of the 1960s through the 1980s.
She earned a science fiction fan-following for portraying the shape-shifting alien Sylvia in the original Star Trek episode “Catspaw” — the franchise’s first Halloween-themed episode — and for playing Eve Norda in The Twilight Zone episode Probe 7, Over and Out.
Beyond science fiction, Bower earned nearly 100 screen credits to her name during a career that included appearances in television series such as Mission: Impossible, Columbo, Perry Mason, Kojak, The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O and Murder, She Wrote.
She also appeared in films including Prom Night, starring opposite Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as The Evil That Men Do alongside Charles Bronson.
Her final major acting role came in the Canadian drama Neon Rider, where she portrayed Fox Devlin for the show’s first three seasons before retiring from acting in the early 1990s.
Before finding success in Hollywood, Bower worked with the United Nations’ International Refugee Organization, helping people displaced after the Second World War. After moving to Canada in 1953, she joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where she wrote scripts, conducted live interviews and launched her acting career before relocating to Los Angeles.
Retirement did not mark the end of her creative pursuits. Bower produced, directed, filmed and narrated a documentary on Canadian chuckwagon racing, later studying carpentry at Santa Monica College, building furniture and even working at Home Depot.
Glackin has also revealed that Bower continued receiving fan mail from Star Trek admirers well into her later years.
She also said William Shatner had sent his condolences following the actress’s death.
Bower was married to pop artist James Gill, though the marriage later ended in divorce. A celebration of her life is scheduled to be held in Pasadena on September 26.
