James Sloyan, a character actor who played four different aliens across three “Star Trek” series and helped set the con in motion in the Oscar-winning “The Sting,” was 85 when he died at his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home on July 22, 2026.
Two months passed before his family disclosed the death, doing so in an obituary that the Los Angeles Times ran on Sunday, Sept. 20. The family provided no cause of death.
“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 Across Three Series
Sloyan made five appearances across three “Star Trek” series, playing four characters in all.
On “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” he played Romulan Adm. Alidar Jarok in the 1990 episode “The Defector”; the officer’s conflicted decision to defect to the Enterprise propels that hour. “Firstborn,” a 1994 episode of the same series, brought him back as Alexander Rozhenko — the grown 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 film won Best Picture at the Oscars 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 the Lexus Voice
On television, Sloyan made guest appearances on “The Doctors,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Kojak” and “Delvecchio.” He had a regular role in 1977’s “Westside Medical.” In 1983, he was cast 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 Roots and Army Years
Indianapolis was Sloyan’s birthplace, on Feb. 24, 1941. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he spent three years in the U.S. Army at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., before he committed to acting full time.
“Indians” gave him his Broadway debut in 1969, and 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. It was instead an unmistakable voice, a face buried under alien prosthetics and a reliable second banana in a blockbuster caper.
His wife, actress Deirdre Lenihan, survives him, as do their children, musician Daniel Sloyan and actress Samantha Sloyan.