A Greek god has left the Enterprise for good.
Michael Forest, the actor who played the Greek god Apollo on “Star Trek,” died Oct. 14, 2026, in Sparks, Nev., at 97.
His friend James A. Brown announced the death on Friday, Oct. 16, in a Facebook post. “It is with great sadness that I report that we have lost Michael Forest. I knew him as an actor and loved him as a friend. I’m sure others will share, but that’s all I’m capable of right now,” Brown wrote.
Brown paired the post with a photo of himself and the actor, and a picture of the nameplate outside Forest’s room at MorningStar Senior Living in Sparks, where he had recently been living. The nameplate read “Jerry Charlebois.” Forest was born Gerald Michael Charlebois.
A cause of death has not been disclosed for Forest, and complete information on survivors was not immediately available. He left behind more than 200 credits across seven decades — and a single hour of television that fans never let go.
Three Auditions and a Refused Accent
Forest appeared in exactly one episode of “Star Trek: The Original Series,” the one fans remember. “Who Mourns for Adonais?” aired in 1967 and cast him as a towering being who claimed to be Apollo and demanded worship from the crew of the USS Enterprise. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy also starred.
He had to read for it three times before producers handed him the part, he told StarTrek.com in a 2012 interview. They asked him to remove his shirt to check his build. They also wanted a British accent, and Forest said no, offering instead a mid-Atlantic theater speech. He read it that way, and the role was his.
Forest rated much of his other work alongside the episode, or above it, but he knew what it had done for him. The role had “really given [him his] 15 minutes of fame,” he said.
Leslie Parrish, who played Lt. Carolyn Palamas opposite him in the episode, died at 90 in late 2025.
He Considered Boxing for a Living
Forest was born April 17, 1929, in Harvey, N.D., and moved with his family to Seattle as a young child. He considered boxing for a living and changed course after watching a friend perform on stage. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and drama at San Jose State University, then moved to Los Angeles in 1955.
An acting class there introduced him to director Roger Corman, who put him in “The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent,” “Beast From Haunted Cave” in 1959 and “Ski Troop Attack” in 1960. In 1961 he took the title role in the sword-and-sandal adventure “Atlas.”
Television kept him working. He rode through “Zorro,” “Have Gun – Will Travel,” “Maverick,” “Rawhide,” “Wagon Train,” “Gunsmoke” and three episodes of “Bonanza,” and he played a character named Lupesh in the first season of “Mission: Impossible,” broadcast in 1967. His other credits included “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” “Ben Casey,” “The Outer Limits,” “Gomer Pyle: USMC,” “I Spy,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Get Smart,” “The Rookies” and “Who’s the Boss.”
In 1964 he turned up on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” as a former boyfriend of Laura Petrie, played by Mary Tyler Moore — a man who had become a priest. That same year he played a member of an alien biker gang in “The Twilight Zone” episode “Black Leather Jackets.”
On film he appeared in “100 Rifles” with Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch and Jim Brown, and played Khalid bin Walid in “The Message.” Later came “King Kong Lives,” the 1993 thriller “Body of Evidence” with Madonna, and a pilot in the 2000 Tom Hanks film “Cast Away.” He also worked in soaps — “As the World Turns,” “Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and the Restless” — and on “Silk Stalkings.”
Hundreds of Dubbed Films in Rome
Forest lived in Rome between 1968 and 1978 and dubbed hundreds of films there, sometimes credited as Alfred Thor. That work fed a second career, and he became one of anime’s busiest voices.
He voiced Alex Rosewater in “The Big O,” Kubota in “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex,” Inuyama in “Samurai Champloo,” Lurald in “Trigun,” Doctor Seijiro Inui in “Paprika” and Captain Paolo in the “Mobile Suit Gundam” movie trilogy. He also played Dorai, Chun-Li’s father, in “Street Fighter II: V.” His video game work ran to the “Dynasty Warriors” franchise and “World of Warcraft.”
At 71, he played the villainous Prince Olympius in “Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue.”
Apollo Again, Nearly 46 Years Later
Forest returned to Apollo in 2013 in the fan-made web series “Star Trek Continues,” in an episode called “Pilgrim of Eternity” that arrived nearly 46 years after the original. His wife, the actress and acting coach Diana Hale, played the goddess Athena in it. They married in 1970 and were together 52 years, until her death in 2022.
His 1967 performance footage surfaced again in 2016’s “X-Men: Apocalypse.” In 2020 he was one of more than 40 “Star Trek” actors in Snoop Dogg’s sci-fi parody “Unbelievable!!!!!” He met fans at The Hollywood Show in Los Angeles in 2014 and 2017, and at the 17th annual “Star Trek” convention in Las Vegas in 2018.
About eight months before his death, Forest received a collection of more than 600 letters from fans thanking him for his work, described as one of the most notable acknowledgments of his career during his final year.