Nana Visitor

Actress Nana Visitor has a career that spans five decades and has revolved mainly around the small screen. While she may best be known as Major Kira Nerys on the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Visitor has been in many hit TV series.

NANA VISITOR RETURNED TO STAR TREK FOR LOWER DECKS

After years away from the Holodeck, Nana Visitor returned to her role of Kira Nerys, though it isn’t how fans would have expected years ago. She voiced the role in the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode “Hear All, Trust Nothing”.

In an interview with TrekMovie, Visitor said about seeing the opening credits of the episode she was involved in, “I’ll tell you, seeing the station, and hearing the music when I watched the episode was surprisingly emotional. It choked me up…”

Co-star Armin Shimerman also appeared in the episode, voicing his character Quark. The show has made excellent use of the Star Trek universe through its first four seasons and this was no different.

NANA VISITOR SLOWED DOWN HER ACTING CAREER

After Star Trek, Nana Visitor didn’t take as many acting roles. She married her third husband, Matthew Rimmer, in 2003.

On the acting front, Nana Visitor was seen in Parts 1 and 2 of A Bread Factory as well as Killer in Law. Those were back in 2018. There were a couple of smaller 2020 productions like Unbelievable!!! and Alone Together: A DS9 Companion, but those were minor. In general, she took a big step back from the screen.

SHE WAS BORN NANA TUCKER

Nana Visitor began her acting career under her true name, Nana Tucker. In 1976, her career started on the short-lived sitcom Ivan the Terrible. From there, she starred in her first feature film, the horror movie The Sentinel.

She moved back to TV when she was hired for a recurring role on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope. She lasted two years on the soap opera, which had 79 episodes. As her career began to take off, Nana Tucker turned herself into Nana Visitor, a name she took on in the early ‘80s and never gave up.

As she took on the Nana Visitor moniker, she began to grab more and more roles. The ‘80s brought her Hunter, Remington Steele, The Twilight Zone, Knight Rider, and Hotel. She also grabbed a recurring role on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys, which amazingly starred movie legends Charlton Heston, Katherine Ross, Ricardo Montalban, and Barbara Stanwyck.

The ‘80s was a big decade for Nana Visitor. As well as the already mentioned TV series, she was also seen on MacGyver, Jake and the Fatman, Night Court, LA Law, Thirtysomething, and Doogie Howser, M.D. She was a busy actress, to say the least.

NANA VISITOR WAS NERYS ON DEEP SPACE NINE

The ‘90s began just as busy for her. Always looking for that long-time gig, Nana Visitor finally found it in 1993 when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came calling. She portrayed Major Kira Nerys (eventually Colonel, then Commander) in all seven seasons of the Star Trek series.

Nana Visitor was so good in her role as Nerys that she was nominated eight times for an Online Film & Television Association Award, winning three times for Best Actress in a Syndicated Series. Visitor also won a Universe Reader’s Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Genre TV Series.

During her seven-season run on Deep Space Nine, Nana Visitor continued to work on other projects but mainly focused on the Star Trek series until it ended in 1999.

SHE PLAYED JASON’S MOTHER IN THE FRIDAY THE 13TH FRANCHISE

After Deep Space Nine ended in 1999, Nana Visitor landed a role in Dark Angel. Her resume jumped with roles in Frasier, Las Vegas, According to Jim, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Her next big series was Wildfire, a TV series that lasted four seasons for Visitor. Just as Wildfire ended, Visitor grabbed the role of Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees, in the 2009 remake of Friday the 13^th. We all know how that ended for her!

She went from being Jason’s mother to other TV series. She was seen on Torchwood, Grimm, Castle, and even lent her voice to Family Guy. Visitor even briefly returned to her Dynasty roots when she appeared in an episode of the CW rebooted Dynasty TV series.

All in all, it’s been a pretty packed career for Nana Visitor. Once part of the Star Trek universe, always part of the Star Trek universe- that’s just the way it goes with this franchise. The Star Trek: Lower Decks example is a perfect one.