American actress Patti Yasutake of Star Trek and Beef dies at 70
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American actress Patti Yasutake (left) as Fumi in Netflix series Beef. Yasutake died of cancer on Aug 5.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
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LOS ANGELES – American actress Patti Yasutake, known for her roles in the hit Netflix series Beef (2023) and in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 to 1994), died in a hospital in Los Angeles on Aug 5. She was 70.
The cause was cancer, said her manager Kyle Fritz and friend of more than 30 years.
Yasutake had a 30-year theatre career, but she was most widely recognised for her recurring role as Nurse Alyssa Ogawa in the science-fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation. She appeared in 16 episodes and later reprised the role in the films Star Trek Generations (1994) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996).
In an article on Startrek.com, the website’s managing editor Christine Dinh wrote that 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,” Dinh wrote.
More recently, Yasutake was cast in Beef, a dark comedy in which she played Fumi Nakai, the fierce and unapologetic mother-in-law of Amy Lau, played by Ali Wong.
Patricia Sue Yasutake was born in Gardena, California, on Sept 6, 1953. She grew up there and in Inglewood, California. She graduated with honours from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a theatre 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,” 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 theatre and the largest producer of Asian-American theatrical works. There, she worked with the Academy Award-nominated actor Mako, a co-founder of the theatre who is regarded as an Asian-American pathbreaker.
Yasutake’s theatre-directing credits included developing and staging the world premieres of Doughball, at East West Players, and Father, I Must Have Rice, at the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
In 1986, she played a Japanese wife earnestly trying to Americanise in Ron Howard’s comedy film Gung Ho, and reprised the role for ABC’s short-lived television series adaptation (1986 to 1987). In 1989, she appeared in Michael Toshiyuki Uno’s The Wash, an independent film about a second-generation Japanese-American couple.
Her television appearances included one-off arcs on ER (1994 to 2009), The Closer (2005 to 2012), Grey’s Anatomy (2005 to present), Bones (2005 to 2017), NCIS: Los Angeles (2009 to 2023) and Cold Case (2003 to 2010), and her film credits included Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and Blind Spot (1993).
In the interview with Tudum, Yasutake said that she did not think she would 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. NYTIMES
