Patti Yasutake , best known for her roles in Beef and Star Trek : The Next Generation , passed away peacefully on August 5 surrounded by friends and family after a long battle with cancer, her manager and friend Kyle Fritz told Deadline. She was 70. Los Angeles native Yasutake, born and raised in Gardena and Inglewood, graduated from UCLA with honors in theater.
She started her career at East West Players, where she worked with the company’s co-founder, Japanese-American acting icon Mako, for six years onstage, on staff and on the board, performing in over a dozen shows. Yasutake’s last TV role before her death was one of the highest-profiled ones in her career — she was a series regular on Netflix’s acclaimed limited series Beef , playing George’s mother Fumi Nakai. Yasutake also is known for playing Nurse Alyssa Ogawa on Star Trek: The Next Generation , a role she later reprised in the films Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Generations.
“Patti was my first client when I began over 30 years ago,” Fritz said. “We enjoyed every day we got to work together, and I will miss her spirit talent and tenacity but most of all her friendship.” Yasutake made her major feature debut in Ron Howard’s 1986 comedy Gung Go as Umeki, a relocated Japanese wife earnestly trying to Americanize.
She reprised her character in the follow-up ABC comedy series spawned by the movie. For her next movie, the 1988 The Wash , Yasutake received an Independent Spirit Award Sup.