Patti Yasutake of ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Beef’ Dies at 70
Ms. Yasutake played Nurse Alyssa Ogawa in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Patti Yasutake, the actress known for her roles in the hit Netflix series “Beef” and in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” died on Monday at a hospital in Los Angeles. She was 70.
The cause was cancer, her manager and friend of more than 30 years, Kyle Fritz, said.
Ms. Yasutake had a 30-year theater career, but she is most widely recognized for her recurring role as Nurse Alyssa Ogawa in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the television show that aired from 1987 to 1994. She appeared in 16 episodes and later reprised the role in the films “Star Trek Generations” and “Star Trek: First Contact.”
In an article on Startrek.com, the website’s managing editor Christine Dinh wrote that Ms. Yasutake’s Ogawa was one of two recurring ethnically Asian characters on the show at the same time, a rarity when there “were so few characters who looked like me on-screen in Western media that I could count them on one hand.”
“What stands out about Alyssa Ogawa’s story is that it spoke to the Asian American experience but wasn’t about that,” Ms. Dinh wrote.
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More recently, she was cast in Netflix’s hit show “Beef,” a dark comedy in which Ms. Yasutake plays Fumi Nakai, the fierce and unapologetic mother-in-law of Amy Lau, played by Ali Wong.
Patricia Sue Yasutake was born in Gardena, Calif., on Sept. 6, 1953. She grew up there and in Inglewood. Ms. Yasutake graduated with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a theater degree.
“There [were] really no opportunities to have a career as an Asian American actress; I didn’t do martial arts, I didn’t speak a second language,” Ms. Yasutake told Tudum, the official Netflix site, in an April 2023 interview. “Especially back then, that’s all they saw you as.”
She got her start in the 1970s at East West Players, the country’s longest-running Asian American theater and the largest producer of Asian American theatrical works. There, she worked with the Academy Award-nominated actor Mako, a co-founder of the theater who is regarded as an Asian American pathbreaker.
Her theater-directing credits include developing and staging the world premieres of “Doughball,” at East West Players, and “Father, I Must Have Rice,” at the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
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In 1986, she played a Japanese wife earnestly trying to Americanize in Ron Howard’s “Gung Ho,” and reprised the role for ABC’s television series adaptation. In 1989, she appeared in Michael Toshiyuki Uno’s “The Wash,” an independent film about a second-generation Japanese American couple.
Her television appearances include “ER,” “The Closer,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Bones,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and “Cold Case” and her film credits include “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Blind Spot.”
In the interview with Tudum, Ms. Yasutake said that she didn’t think she’d ever get a role like Fumi in “Beef.”
“It feels deeply gratifying that not only did I have the opportunity to participate in it, and we had such fun [making it], but that the audiences are having such fun — I can’t even describe it. It’s just a thrill,” she said.
She is survived by siblings Linda Hayashi and Steven Yasutake.
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