Tricia O'Neil

Tricia O'Neil, born Patricia Lou O'Neil on March 11, 1945, in Shreveport, Louisiana, is an American actress whose career has spanned stage, film, and television. She is the daughter of James Weldon O'Neil and Mary Jane Marter. The family relocated to El Paso, Texas, where O'Neil attended elementary and intermediate school, and she later graduated from McAllen High School. She earned her degree from Baylor University in 1968, studying voice with singer Miklos Bencze during her time there.

While still a student at Baylor, O'Neil appeared on two locally produced television specials that aired on KCEN-TV in 1965. On May 14 of that year, she was among 18 performers — three of them Baylor students — chosen for Talent '65, a statewide showcase sponsored by Southwestern Bell, produced by KHOU-TV, and hosted by John Hambrick. Accompanying herself on guitar, she performed "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," a composition by Anne Bredon that Joan Baez had popularized in 1962. Later that year, on December 24 and 25, O'Neil and the Baylor University Religious Hour Choir were featured on Christmas: Old and New, an hour-long special broadcast on WFAA (AM) on Christmas Eve and on KCEN on Christmas Day. After graduating from Baylor, she spent two years performing in supper clubs across Texas and California. It was also during this period that she adopted the name Tricia professionally, having discovered that a Patti O'Neil was already registered with Actors Equity.

O'Neil made her professional theatrical debut on Broadway in 1970 in the musical Two by Two, earning a Theatre World Award in 1971 for her performance. Her Broadway activity continued through 1972, with an additional credit in A Celebration of Richard Rodgers. O'Neil transitioned to film with her screen debut in The Legend of Nigger Charley in 1972. Subsequent film appearances included The Gumball Rally (1976), Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night (1977), Are You in the House Alone? (1978), The Kid from Left Field (1979), Brave New World (1980), Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), Ted & Venus (1991), and Titanic (1997).

Her television career began with the 1973 television movie Duty Bound. Over the following decades, O'Neil accumulated an extensive list of guest appearances on series including Columbo, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Hart to Hart, Barney Miller, The Fall Guy, Remington Steele, Murder She Wrote, Riptide, and Airwolf. She appeared in the miniseries Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls in 1981 and recurred on The A-Team as Dr. Maggie "Mo" Sullivan in both a season one episode, "Black Day at Bad Rock," and a season two episode, "Deadly Maneuvers." She also appeared in three separate episodes of Matlock between 1989 and 1994.

O'Neil became particularly associated with science fiction television during the 1980s and 1990s. On Star Trek: The Next Generation, she portrayed Captain Rachel Garrett of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) in the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" and later returned to the series in a separate role as the Klingon Kurak in "Suspicions." She subsequently guest-starred on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the Cardassian character Korinas in the episode "Defiant." On Babylon 5, she appeared as M'ola in the season one episode "Believers" in 1994 and later played the Earth Alliance president in the television film Babylon 5: In the Beginning in 1998. In 1991, O'Neil filmed scenes as Hoelun for a production of Genghis Khan that was never released; efforts in 2010 to repackage the footage as a miniseries tentatively titled Genghis Khan: The Story of a Lifetime did not come to fruition. Her final screen appearance was in the 2001 JAG episode "Redemption," in which she played Dr. Beth Salluci.

In her personal life, O'Neil married opera singer James Irving Van Valkenburg on August 6, 1966; the marriage ended in divorce five years later.