With ‘Night Court’ Back, Where’s the Rest of the Original Cast?
Order in the Night Court! The NBC sitcom has concluded its second new season after coming back more than 30 years after the original series finished off its docket. But the new Night Court has an almost entirely new cast: The only holdover from the ’80s version was John Larroquette, who won four back-to-back Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy Awards for his performance as Dan Fielding.
Like the original, the new Night Court follows a judge who “presides over the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court and tries to bring order to its crew of oddballs and cynics,” as NBC explains. This time, however, that judge is Abby Stone (Melissa Rauch), daughter of Harry Stone, the magistrate from the original, played by Harry Anderson.
Anderson died in 2018, and many of the other Night Court costars have also passed away, including Richard Moll, Charles Robinson, Markie Post, Selma Diamond, Florence Halop, S. Marc Jordan, and Paula Kelly. But we do have updates for other actors from the first Night Court — which ran for nine seasons between 1984 and 1992 — minus Mike Finneran, who dropped out of the spotlight in the mid-1990s.
Night Court, Seasons 1 & 2, Available now, Peacock
Marsha Warfield (Rosalind “Roz” Russell)
Warfield retired from acting in the late 1990s but recently returned to the screen in the Fox series 9-1-1, in which she recurs as Toni Wilson, mother of Henrietta (Aisha Hinds). She reprised her role as Roz in the Night Court reboot’s Season 1 finale, as well as the Season 2 premiere and finale.
The Season 2 finale saw Roz get married to her fiancée, Loretta (Indira G. Wilson) in a ceremony and reception hosted in the Night Court courtroom at which Christine Sullivan’s (Markie Post) sister, Katie (Gigi Rice), was present (shown above)! Rice played Larroquette’s love interest in The John Larroquette Show.
Brent Spiner (Bob Wheeler) & Annie O'Donnell (June Wheeler)
Spiner and O’Donnell played the forever unlucky Wheelers in the original Night Court. They came back for more in Season 2 Episode 11, confirming to the court that the Wheelers are just as unlucky as ever.
Before coming back for this Night Court guest spot, Spiner played Commander Data in multiple Star Trek titles (the most recent being Star Trek: Picard). His longest Star Trek stint was in The Next Generation, and he’s also appeared in other series such as Ray Donovan.
O’Donnell has continued as a character actor, with guest star spots in episodes of Not Dead Yet, Lessons in Chemistry, Fresh Off the Boat, Mike & Molly, The Big Bang Theory, and more.
Joleen Lutz (Lisette Hocheiser)
Lutz, seen here in the 2003 movie Gacy, has become an interpretive naturalist and a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens — where she once led an adults-only presentation on “animal mating, dating, and cohabitating” called Sex and the City Zoo.
William Utay (Phil Sanders & Will Sanders)
Utay started playing Dr. Wilhelm Rolf on Days of Our Lives in 1995 and kept the part until 2022, when Richard Wharton took over the role. The actor also appeared in a 2017 episode of Modern Family, playing The Great Majesto.
Ellen Foley (Billie Young)
Foley’s most recent TV role came back in 2011, when she appeared in an episode of Body of Proof. She has, however, kept up her music career: Her album Fighting Words came out in 2021. Her website says she was meant to go on tour in Netherlands starting in January 2023, but it was postponed due to illness.
Denice Kumagai (Quon Le Robinson)
Kumagai now works as an ADR loop group coordinator in Hollywood, as her IMDb profile shows. She’s also a founding member of the Cold Tofu improv group. (She’s pictured above with fellow Cold Tofu troupe member Judy Momii at the East West Players’ 47th Annual Visionary Awards in 2013.) Kumagai’s latest voice over credit was in Tyler Perry’s 2022 film A Jazzman’s Blues.
Karen Austin (Lana Wagner)
Austin continued acting after Night Court, notably sharing the screen with Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in the 2011 movie The Rum Diary, as seen here. Her TV career, meanwhile, includes guest-starring parts in Battlestar Galactica, CSI: Miami, and The Closer. Her most recent credit is playing Mrs. White in an episode of the Table Read Podcast in 2023.
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