Herta Ware

Character actress of stage, screen and TV, who suffered through the blacklisting of the 50s alongside husband Will Geer (later Grandpa Walton on "The Waltons") and returned to frequent film and TV roles in the mid-80s, particularly after her performance as Rose Lefkowitz, the senile wife of Jack Gilford who dies in "Cocoon" (1985). Even before her mature on-camera roles of recent years, Herta Ware was known to theatre audiences for her work as member of Eva LaGallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in the 1930s, as well as for her roles on Broadway and on stage in Los Angeles, where she co-founded, with Geer, the Theatricum Botanicum in the Topanga section of the city. Among her many stage roles were the mother in "Ah! Wilderness," and, on Broadway, "Journeyman" and "Bury the Dead." After a long sojourn, she was seen in a bit part -- as the old lady on the bus -- in "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hype" in 1980, and in a small role in "2010" in 1984 before "Cocoon" returned her to prominence on casting lists. She was also in "Cocoon: The Return," again as Rose, as well playing Nana in "Critters 2: The Main Course" (1988), and Chuck Norris' mother in "Top Dog" (1995). On TV, Ware was the sympathetic Mrs. Hartounian in "Who Hears A Child's Cry?" (1986), and was Dorothy Hendricks, a older passenger whose plane runs awry in "Miracle Landing" (1990), both TV movies. She appeared in the miniseries "Crossings," and was mother to Captain Jean-Luc Picard in a memorable episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which aired in 1988. More recently, she appeared with Tracey Ullman in the latter's HBO series "Tracey Takes On..." (1996).