According to Deadline Camille Saviola, who played Bajoran religious leader Kai Opaka in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, passed away yesterday at the age of 71. The Star Trek website WarpFactorTrek.com was the first to break the news, there is no further information as to what caused her death.
Camille Saviola’s Life
Saviola was born on July 16, 1950, to Mary and Michael Saviola in New York’s borough, The Bronx. They lived near the old Yankee Stadium. She would end up graduating from the High School of Music and Art and after dropping out of college, she decided to give acting a shot. In the 1970’s she would become the lead singer of the rock band, Margo Lewis Explosion. She would later be signed to a disco contract in the late ’70s.
Her first Broadway role was a small one in Woody Allen’s 1984 play, Broadway Danny Rose. A year later she would work with Allen again, this time in the film The Purple Rose of Cairo as Olga. A year after that, Saviola would get a role in the 1986 action-comedy musical, Weekend Warriors. From there she would get more consistent on-screen work in things like Last Exit to Brooklyn, Baby Boom, Penn & Teller Get Killed, and a recurring role in The Heights.
The 1990s were a great decade for Saviola as she would reteam with Allen once again in his 1991’s Shadow and Fog and be in the Addams Family Values movie, one episode of Friends, and N.Y.P.D. Blue. Following that, Saviola would finally get her most famous on-screen role as Kai Opaka in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Becker, ER, Saving Grace, Entourage, and Nip/Tuck would be just some of the television shows Saviola would appear on following that, her very last credit as Filomena in the comedy-romance television show, Younger. No details yet on her survivors.
