Ralph Senensky, Prolific TV Director Behind ‘Star Trek’ And ‘The Waltons,’ Dies At 102

Ralph Senensky, the director of Star Trek and The Waltons, among dozens of other television series, died on November 1 in a hospital in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He was 102.

His niece, costume designer Lisa Lupo-Silvas, confirmed his death to The Hollywood Reporter. “He was 100 percent sharp until the end,” she said. “He may have been 102, but he had a mind like he was 30.”

Born in Mason City, Iowa, on May 1, 1923, Ralph Senensky was a World War II veteran, serving in Europe from 1943 to 1945. Following his role as a stage director before turning to television, Senensky entered the world of episodic television in 1958 as a production supervisor and production coordinator in four episodes of the anthology drama series Playhouse 90.

Segueing into his role as a TV director with five episodes of the medical drama Dr. Kildare, starring Richard Chamberlain, in 1961, Senensky honed his early directing chops in other series like comedies The Phil Silvers Show, Car 54, Where Are You? and Gomer Pyle, USMC; and dramas like 12 O’Clock High, The Big Valley, The Defenders, Lost in Space, and The Wild, Wild West.

Senensky reached a career milestone directing seven episodes of the original Star Trek. “I directed twice as many episodes of The Waltons and two and half times as many episodes of The FBI. I directed more episodes of The Partridge Family and more episodes of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father than I did of Star Trek,” wrote Ralph Senensky on his website, Ralph’s Cinema Trek. “And yet today if you google-search my name on the internet, you will think I spent most of my career directing Star Trek.

“How and when did this phenomenon involve me? It was early December, 1966, when one of my agents called to ask if I would like to direct an episode of Star Trek,” he wrote. “I had not seen the show, and I was not into science fiction, but I also was not one to turn down a challenge. So I said, “Yeah, go ahead and book me,” he wrote.

Senensky also directed 15 episodes of the syndicated religious-themed weekly anthology series Insight. And his resume was also filled with TV movies and episodes of series like family dramas The Family Holvak and Eight Is Enough; crime dramas The Rookies, Barnaby Jones and The Blue Knight; and the medical drama Trapper John, M.D.

By the 1980s, Senensky was active behind the scenes of episodes of dramas Lou Grant, Young Maverick, Hart to Hart, and Dynasty, among others.

Later, Senensky briefly returned to the theater, where he directed the plays You Can’t Take It With You and Watch on the Rhine.

“Directing episodic television is like jumping on a freight train in motion,” Ralph Senensky once said. “As a director, you have to jump on and not break your legs. Once you’ve boarded it, you must climb on top of the train and run across, get into the engine and take over running it. Much of what happens is that before you can bring anything personal to a story — which you have to do — you have to get acquainted with who the people are. That’s not in terms of who you want them to be but who they already are, because you catch them as ongoing, already established characters.”

In 2013, Senensky directed his first film project in more than two decades, an independent production titled The Right Regrets.

“I hear many friends in my age bracket commenting, ‘Where has the time gone? It just seems to have flown by.’ I don’t feel that way. I look back, and I see a long, long road, the one it has taken me a long, long time to traverse.”

“He had a tremendous career that impacted so many shows. His is the end of an era we will likely never see again,” wrote Judy Norton on her Facebook page, who played eldest daughter Mary-Ellen on The Waltons. “Goodnight, Ralph.”