Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 9, 1994 TAG: 9405090002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"This is all very bittersweet," says Jonathan Frakes, who portrays Cmdr. William T. Riker, first officer on the starship Enterprise.
"I haven't come to grips with the end of the series yet," says actor Michael Dorn, the ship's Klingon security officer, in the May 14 issue of TV Guide magazine.
The series concludes May 23 after a seven-year run, but the cast has already begun work on a "Star Trek" feature film scheduled for release late this year.
LeVar Burton, who plays the blind Cmdr. Geordi LaForge, said he looks forward to new horizons. He is in his 11th year as host of public television's "Reading Rainbow."
Frakes, who has directed several episodes, doesn't worry about finding other roles or being typecast, noting the success of the actors who portrayed Capt. James T. Kirk and Spock on the original "Star Trek."
"There are far worse fates than being permanently identified with the legend that is `Star Trek,' " he said. "I'll take a career like William Shatner's or Leonard Nimoy's anytime."
Bill Shoemaker, the jockey-turned-trainer, has written "Stalking Horse," a novel about a jockey unjustly banned in a race-fixing scandal.
Shoemaker, 62, paralyzed from the neck down since a 1991 car accident, said he wrote the book with help from Dick Lochte, a mystery novelist. He retired from riding in 1990 after winning a record 8,833 races.
Out of a job as civilian head of the Pentagon, Les Aspin is moving into the world of academia.
Aspin has been hired as a major participant for Marquette University's program of international studies in Washington.
Aspin, 55, an economics professor at Marquette before he was elected to Congress in 1970, will divide his time between the Milwaukee, Wis., campus and its proposed Washington Center for Government.
by CNB