American actress (died 2022) who played Gem, the mute empath tested by the Vians, in the third-season Original Series episode The Empath.
Kathryn Hays was an American actress best known for playing Kim Hughes in the daytime serial As the World Turns, a role she held from 1972 until the programme ended in 2010.
In The Empath she played the silent woman whom McCoy names Gem. Held in an underground laboratory on Minara II, she can take the injuries of others into her own body and heal them. The Vians torture Kirk and McCoy to discover whether she will risk her life for strangers, the quality that would make her people worth saving from their dying sun. Hays played the part entirely without dialogue, in a performance close to dance and mime.
She died in 2022.