James Sloyan, a character actor who played four different aliens across three “Star Trek” series and appeared in the Oscar-winning “The Sting,” was 85 when he died at his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home on July 22, 2026.
His family waited two months to announce the death, disclosing it in an obituary that the Los Angeles Times carried on Sunday, Sept. 20. No cause of death was provided.
“Friends and colleagues remember him always present, always curious, courageous, inventive, loyal, as well as brash, mouthy and very urban. He was one-of-a-kind,” the family wrote in the obituary.
Four Aliens, Three Series
Sloyan made five appearances across three “Star Trek” series, playing four characters in all.
On “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” he played the Romulan Adm. Alidar Jarok in the 1990 episode “The Defector.” Jarok is the conflicted officer whose decision to defect to the Enterprise propels the entire hour. The series brought Sloyan back for “Firstborn” in 1994, where he took on the grown-up Alexander Rozhenko — son of the Klingon Worf, with the part also credited as K’mtar.
He played the Bajoran scientist Dr. Mora Pol in two episodes of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” and the Haakonian scientist Ma’Bor Jetrel on “Star Trek: Voyager.”
From “The Sting” to “Xanadu”
Sloyan made his film debut in 1970 in “The Traveling Executioner,” and appeared in “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” in 1971.
In the 1973 film “The Sting,” he played Mottola, a numbers runner who becomes the first mark of the con pulled by Johnny Hooker, played by Robert Redford, and Luther Coleman, played by Robert Earl Jones, setting the story in motion. “The Sting” won the Oscar for best picture in 1974.
In the 1980 film “Xanadu,” starring Olivia Newton-John, he played Simpson, the demanding boss at AirFlo Records of the aspiring artist Sonny Malone, played by Michael Beck.
Television and a Lexus Voice
On television, Sloyan made guest appearances on “The Doctors,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Kojak” and “Delvecchio,” and had a regular role in 1977’s “Westside Medical.” In 1983 producers cast him opposite “Oh Madeline” star Madeline Kahn as her husband in the sitcom, which ran through 1984.
He was also the voice of Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus in commercials for 18 years, beginning in 1989.
Stage Work and Early Years
Sloyan was born in Indianapolis on Feb. 24, 1941. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he spent three years in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., before he committed to acting full time. He made his Broadway debut in 1969’s “Indians.”
He took lead roles in off-Broadway productions including “A Dream Out of Time.” He also handled fight choreography for Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival.
His career ran more than five decades and rarely put him at the top of a poster: an unmistakable voice, a face buried under alien prosthetics, a reliable second banana in a blockbuster caper.
Sloyan is survived by his wife, the actress Deirdre Lenihan, whom he married in 1973, and their children, the musician Daniel Sloyan and the actress Samantha Sloyan.
