Gene Dynarski

Gene Dynarski was an American actor who trained in theater arts at Harbor College in San Pedro, Los Angeles, and worked on stage before moving into film and television. He had a small part in Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971) as a truck driver in a cafe, and he also appeared in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). In the 1974 film Earthquake he played Fred, a dam worker, and in the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert he took the supporting role of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. On television he appeared in episodes of the original Star Trek and later in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation; he appeared on Batman, Starsky & Hutch, CHiPs, The A-Team and Little House on the Prairie, and played Izzy Mandelbaum Jr. on Seinfeld. His final screen role came in The X-Files episode Patience. He helped create the Gene Dynarski Theater in Los Angeles, which opened in 1979.