Robert Mandan
Robert Mandan (2 February 1932–29 April 2018; age 86) was the actor who played Kotan Pa'Dar in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine second season episode "Cardassians".
Mandan may be best known for his role as Chester Tate in the satirical Soap, a series that ran from 1977 to 1981 and mocked the often-unlikely antics found on contemporary daytime soap operas; Mandan's Tate was himself the perpetrator of several affairs and at least one murder. He also played Colonel Lawrence Fielding in Private Benjamin, a sitcom whose narrative ran concurrently to the film of the same name. Another of his roles, James Bradford, appeared in the final episodes of the acclaimed comedy series Three's Company; it was a role that Mandan would reprise in the spinoff Three's a Crowd, which lasted one season.
He also guest starred in a number of other prominent shows across television, including Mission: Impossible, The Streets of San Francisco, All in the Family (with Michael Pataki), Kojak, Barney Miller (with Gregory Sierra), Maude (with Adrienne Barbeau), The Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones (with Marc Alaimo and Lee Meriwether), The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote (with Bernie Casey, Todd Bryant, and Paul Sorvino), and ER.
Mandan appeared in motion pictures such as Light Fantastic, The Carey Treatment (1972), Hickey & Boggs (1972), MacArthur (1977, with Kenneth Tobey and William Wellman Jr.), Zapped! (1982, with Merritt Butrick), The Nutt House (1992), The Matchmaker (1997), and Teddy Bears' Picnic (with Michael McKean). One of his more prominent film roles was as state senator Charles Wingwood in the 1982 film adaptation of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, starring Dolly Parton and featuring fellow Star Trek alum Ted Gehring and Gregory Itzin. Later in his career, Mandan appeared in many local theatrical productions, according to his friend, playwright Gary Goldstein; Mandan had appeared in Goldstein's first play, Just Men, at Hollywood's Stella Adler theatre in 1996.
Mandan died on 29 April 2018, after a long battle with cancer. (Screen Actors Guild Magazine, Special Edition 2019, p. 94) He was survived by his wife, Sherry Dixon, a psychotherapist; the two had wed in 1963.