Lee Bergere, a prolific character actor on stage and television who appeared in many productions of Man of La Mancha, died Jan. 31, 2007, Wednesday at the Colonial Poplin Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility in Fremont, NH. He was 88. Mr. Bergere first appeared in Man of La Mancha in Los Angeles in 1967, playing the villain, Dr. Carrasco. In that show, he met the original Don Quixote, Richard Kiley, and the two actors became good friends. Mr. Bergere would join Mr. Kiley when the musical was revived on Broadway in 1972. He would go on to play Quixote himself in a different production.

"With that show, something happened to him spiritually; it changed him," his daughter Mimi Bergere told AP. "He strived to live the kind of life that Don Quixote lived, always striving for that unreachable star, never giving up."

Mr. Bergere's first Broadway credit was as understudy to Danny Kaye Lady in the Dark in 1943. A decade later, he stepped into the Helen Hayes hit Mrs. McThing mid-run.

He made his television debut in the 1954 "Studio One" drama "Thunder on Sycamore Street." He appeared in countless television shows after that, but is perhaps best remembered for a single episode of "Star Trek" called "The Savage Curtain," in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and for his role as Joseph, the man who kept house for the rich hysterics who populated the night-time soap "Dynasty."

He is survived by his daughter, a grandson and a nephew.