CBS via Getty Images(SANTA MONICA, Calif.) — Actress Arlene Martel, who played the prospective bride of Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock in a classic episode of Star Trek, has died at 78.
Martel died Tuesday from complications of a heart attack at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, her son, Jod Kaftan told The Hollywood Reporter.
A native of the Bronx who was frequently billed as Arline Sax, her birth name, Martel was an exotic beauty who often played diverse nationalities and ethnicities. She appeared on several episodes of The Twilight Zone, Hogan’s Heroes and Bewitched, as well as on Columbo, The Untouchables, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and My Favorite Martian, among others.
Martel is best known, however, for playing T’Pring, the Vulcan woman Spock was to marry on the famous Star Trek episode “Amok Time.” That’s the episode in which Spock returns to Vulcan for a mating ritual. While there, he and Captain Kirk are forced to fight to the death and, while Spock wins the battle, he’s crushed that he’s killed his captain. He then actually displays emotion — joy, to be specific — when he learns that Kirk is still alive.
Martel’s movie credits include 1961’s Hong Kong, 1964’s The Glass Cage and the 1968 flick Angels From Hell, in which she played a biker chick. More recently, she portrayed a choir singer in the 2002 film A Walk to Remember.
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