Star Trek actress Antoinette Bower, 93, dies after Hollywood career spanning four decades

Antoinette Bower has died aged 93 (Picture: Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

German-born British actress Antoinette Bower has died aged 93, it has been confirmed.

The star was best known for playing the seductive, catlike alien Sylvia in Star Trek and appearing in sci-fi series The Twilight Zone.

She also starred alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in the 1980 mystery slasher film Prom Night.

Her death was confirmed by her friend, Carlotta Glackin, who is the great-niece of Golden Age actor Edward Everett Horton.

Bower died April 30 in an Eagle Rock retirement home in Los Angeles, Glackin told The Hollywood Reporter.

Her career spanned four decades, beginning in television in 1958 when she moved to Canada to pursue acting. Her earliest roles included the made-for-TV film The Telltale Heart and an episode of The Unforeseen.

Bower, pictured here in 2014, had a successful TV and film career over four decades (Picture: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)

In the late 50s, she scored a recurring role in Hudson’s Bay and featured in episodes of Heritage in 1960. That year, she also further showcased her talents by writing, producing, and narrating an hour-long profile of actor Barry Morse for CBC Radio.

Bower landed her first American series role in a 1961 episode of Hong Kong, after which she frequently appeared on the small screen in the States. Her credits included major projects such as Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, and mini-series The Thorn Birds.

It was around this time that she played Sylvia in Star Trek: The Original Series’ season 2 episode Catspaw, filming her scenes in 1967.

The episode, written by Robert Bloch (who penned the famous 1959 horror novel Psycho) and directed by Joseph Pevney, has been declared ‘stylish’ and ‘silly’ in rankings over the years, with some even calling it one of the ‘scariest’ from the franchise.

Speaking previously in an interview, Star Trek assistant director Charles Washburn praised Bower as the ‘most professional actress’ he’d worked with on the series.

She had been married to artist James Francis, also in his early nineties (Picture: Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

Branching out into film over the next two decades, Bower featured in Death of Innocence (1971), Die Sister, Die! (1978), The Cowboy and the Ballerina (1984), The Evil That Men Do (1984), and Club Paradise (1986).

In a full-circle moment, she completed her lengthy performing career by returning to Canada and joining the cast of Neon Rider for three seasons from 1990 to 1993.

As for her personal life, she was married to American artist James Francis Gill.

Bower confirmed in a 1968 interview that she had married the Pop Art pioneer after meeting him when he moved to Los Angeles in 1962.

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