Star Trek icon Brent Spiner makes a rare sighting at 77, see him now

Star Trek icon Brent Spiner cut a sprightly figure when he was spotted stepping out in the Hollywood Hills a few days ago at the age of 77.

He first shot to fame on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Data, a sentient android crew member of the starship USS Enterprise-D.

Led by Patrick Stewart in his fan favorite role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the show saw Spiner placed amid a cast including Whoopi Goldberg and LeVar Burton. 

Data's keen intelligence and inscrutability enabled him to perform a similar character function as that of Leonard Nimoy's Dr. Spock on the original 1960s Star Trek show.

Beloved by fans of the franchise, Spiner reprised the role for various movies as well as the recent TV series Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Lower Decks. 

When he was glimpsed recently, the now snowy-haired actor wore a casual outfit including an olive green hoodie left open over a black t-shirt.

Spiner's career began in the 1970s on the New York stage, and by the 1980s he was in the original cast of the legendary musical Sunday in the Park with George.

With songs by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine, the show starred Mandy Patinkin as pointillist painter Georges Seurat and Bernadette Peters as his muse Dot, while Spiner played a pair of supporting roles.

The year that Sunday in the Park with George opened on Broadway - 1984 - Spiner struck out to Los Angeles to embark on a screen career.

After jobbing around on series like Night Court and Cheers, he successfully landed the role of Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.

Spiner remained on the show throughout its seven-season run from 1987 to 1994 and also appeared on four movie spin-offs from the 1990s into the early 2000s - Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis.

Although he is most indelibly connected to Star Trek, he has guested on a string of TV shows including Friends, Mad About You, The Blacklist and The Big Bang Theory.

His movies have included Independence Day; Dude, Where's My Car?; South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and the Martin Scorsese picture The Aviator.

Spiner continued acting onstage, such as in Broadway revivals of 1776, a musical about the American Revolution, and Man of La Mancha, a musical of Don Quixote. 

Diehard fans were able to catch him on Star Trek: Picard from 2020 to 2023, and could hear his voice on the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks in 2024.

A month ago he announced that he and his Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star Jonathan Frakes - who played Riker - are starting a celebrity interview podcast.

Entitled Dropping Names with Brent and Jonny, the show is 'this is not a Star Trek podcast,' they insisted in their introductory YouTube video.

However they have 'surrendered to fate' and resigned themselves to the fact that the show that brought them to stardom will be a subject of their podcast.