American actor and playwright, born in 1957, who played the tall-browed alien ensign on the Enterprise bridge in Star Trek: The Motion Picture before becoming a prolific writer of stage comedies.
Billy Van Zandt is an American actor, playwright and television writer. Early in his career he appeared in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) as an alien ensign serving on the bridge of the refitted Enterprise, a young officer with an enlarged forehead whose species was named in production material as Rhaandarite.
The ensign is seen at a rear station during the V'Ger crisis and is one of several non-human crew members introduced in the film to show a more varied Starfleet.
Van Zandt later wrote and produced for television comedies and, with Jane Milmore, co-wrote a large number of stage farces that are widely performed by regional and amateur companies.