Laurence Luckinbill

Laurence George Luckinbill, born November 21, 1934, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, is an American actor, playwright, and director whose career has spanned film, television, and theatre. The son of Agnes (née Nulph) and Laurence Benedict Luckinbill, he pursued an extensive formal education, attending Fort Smith Junior College from 1951 to 1952, earning a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arkansas in 1956, and completing a Master of Fine Arts at the Catholic University of America in 1958. He later attended New York University in 1980 and studied acting at HB Studio in New York City. He is Roman Catholic and is the uncle of film directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the children of his sister Lynne.

Luckinbill made his Broadway debut in 1961 in A Man for All Seasons, launching a stage career that extended through 1998 and encompassed productions including Beekman Place, Dancing in the End Zone, Tartuffe, and The Shadow. He starred in Pavel Kohout's Poor Murderer at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1976, and the following year appeared in Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box at the Morosco Theatre, a role that earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He also appeared in Thomas Babe's A Prayer for My Daughter in 1978 at The Public Theater.

Beyond performing, Luckinbill has written and directed for the stage, with a particular focus on one-man productions built around historical figures. He wrote and starred in Hemingway, Teddy, and An Evening with Clarence Darrow, drawing on the lives of Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Roosevelt, and Clarence Darrow respectively. He has also starred in numerous productions of Lyndon, a one-man show about President Lyndon B. Johnson that he did not write, including a production at the LBJ Museum in Austin, Texas, attended by Lady Bird Johnson. He has toured in theatrical productions alongside his wife, actress Lucie Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, including They're Playing Our Song. Together they have three children: Simon, Joseph, and Katharine. Luckinbill also has two sons, Nicholas and Benjamin, from his previous marriage to actress Robin Strasser.

His screen career began in television, where he appeared on the soap operas Where the Heart Is and The Secret Storm before taking the lead role of espionage agent Glenn Garth Gregory in the ABC dramatic series The Delphi Bureau, which ran from 1972 to 1973. His television work also includes episodes of Law & Order, Barnaby Jones, Columbo, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Murder, She Wrote, as well as the television film Dash and Lilly (1999), in which he played Lillian Hellman's lawyer Joseph L. Rauh. In the early 1970s he served as the commercial spokesperson for Trans World Airlines, appearing in multiple television advertisements for the carrier.

On film, Luckinbill appeared in The Boys in the Band (1970), reprising the stage role of Hank that he had originated. He narrated the documentary Moonwalk One in 1971 and appeared in Such Good Friends that same year. Additional film credits include The Promise (1979) and Cocktail (1988). His most widely recognized film role came in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), in which he portrayed Sybok, the half-brother of Spock. Sean Connery had originally been approached for the part but was committed to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Director and star William Shatner discovered Luckinbill by chance while channel-surfing late one night and watching him perform as Lyndon Johnson, after which he contacted Luckinbill directly to offer the role.