American stage and screen actor (1924–2003) who played the brilliant, troubled computer scientist Dr. Richard Daystrom in The Ultimate Computer and was widely known for the title role in Blacula.
William Marshall was an American actor, born in 1924, with a commanding bass voice and a long career in classical theatre, including a celebrated Othello.
In Star Trek he guest stars in the second-season episode The Ultimate Computer, first shown in 1968. He plays Dr. Richard Daystrom, the inventor of the duotronic computers that run Starfleet's ships, who brings his new M-5 multitronic unit aboard the Enterprise for a test that goes disastrously wrong when the machine, imprinted with his own mind, begins destroying other starships.
Marshall is also remembered for the title role in the 1972 horror film Blacula and as the King of Cartoons in Pee-wee's Playhouse. He died in 2003.