R.I.P. Patti Yasutake, Star Trek: The Next Generation actor and Beef breakout

Patti Yasutake has died. A veteran of stage, screen, and the Starship Enterprise, best known for roles on Beef and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Yasutake died of cancer Monday, surrounded by friends and family, Deadline confirmed via her manager, Kyle Fritz. She was 70.

“Patti was my first client when I began over thirty years ago,” Fritz said. “We enjoyed every day we got to work together, and I will miss her spirit talent, and tenacity but most of all her friendship.”

Best known to television audiences as the Starship Enterprise’s Nurse Alyssa Ogawa on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Yasutake appeared in 16 episodes, often in scenes opposite Gates McFadden’s Dr. Beverly Crusher. Nurse Ogawa has the rare distinction of appearing in a 1993 Hallmark commercial for an Enterprise Christmas ornament, and over the years, the character endeared itself to Trekkers of all stripes. Her popularity on the series eventually led to the beloved season seven episode “Lower Decks,” which explored the oft-mention, rarely seen members of the Enterprise crew and romance subplot for the nurse. Yasutake continued to reprise the role throughout the ’90s, appearing in the films Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact.

In 2023, the actor experienced a late-career breakout on the Netflix original Beef. Starring as Fumi, the eccentric mother-in-law of Ali Wong’s Amy, Yasutake delighted in a script that “really, really, really spoke to the Asian American experience, and yet it wasn’t necessarily about that.” Yasutake didn’t take the role lightly. “I was just elated, this many decades into my career, that a role like this would come along,” she told Netflix last year. “She’s fierce, and she’s unapologetic, so I just adore her. Because she’s also very wicked, in some ways, but she also has a great heart.”

Born on September 6, 1953, Yasutake was a Los Angeles original, raised in Gardena and Inglewood. She graduated with honors in theater from UCLA before joining the East West Players, the nation’s longest-running Asian American theater, where she also directed. She spent 30 years in the theater as an actor and director, working with the New Mexico Repertory Theatre, American Southwest Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory Theatre, and The Westwood Playhouse (now The Geffen Playhouse).

Yasutake, a prolific television actor, who said TV and commercials paid for her theater career, made her small screen debut in 1985 on an episode of T.J. Hooker before making her way to Knots Landing. She crossed over to movies with Ron Howard’s Gung Ho and appeared on the short-lived ABC series it inspired. But her big break came via a 1988 indie by Michael Toshiyuki Uno called The Wash, a film about a second-generation Japanese American couple in the throes of separation. For the performance, Yasutake nabbed an Independent Spirit nomination for Best Supporting Female.

She worked frequently on television throughout her career, appearing on Mr. Belvedere, Picket Fences, ER, Judging Amy, Grey’s Anatomy, Bones, Boston Legal, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Pretty Little Liars. Yasukate also appeared in the films Drop Dead Gorgeous, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!, and Clockwatchers.

She is survived by Linda Hayashi and Steven Yasutake and her extended family.