

(written from a Production point of view Real World article

Iggy Pop Birth name: James Newell Osterberg, Jr. Gender: Male Date of birth: 21 April 1947 Place of birth: Muskegon, Michigan, USA Character(s): Yelgrun

Iggy Pop (born 21 April 1947; age 73) is the stage name of James Newell Osterberg, Jr., a rock singer, songwriter, and occasional actor who appeared as Yelgrun in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine sixth season episode "The Magnificent Ferengi".

Biography

Osterberg was born in Muskegon, Michigan. He took the name "Iggy Pop" at the age of 19 after beginning his career in music: Iggy after The Iguanas (his first band) and Pop after Jim Popp, a friend. Osterburg shaved his eyebrows for a show, which apparently made him resemble Jim Popp, who had recently had chemotherapy.

He was the central figure of the seminal punk rock band formed in Ann Arbor in 1967 that was eventually called "The Stooges." Pop would later go solo, working with such talent as David Bowie (the husband of Star Trek actress Iman) before scoring a US Top 40 hit in a 1991 duet with the B-52s' Kate Pierson and the song "Candy".

The DS9 writers had actually wanted Pop to play the role of Grady in the third season episode "Past Tense, Part II", but he was unavailable due to a music tour he was undertaking in Spain. Ira Steven Behr is an Iggy Pop fan and pushed for his casting as Yelgrun three years later. A few days before filming his DS9 role, he was injured in a mosh pit during one of his concerts. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

In addition to his guest spot on DS9, Pop had small acting roles in films and television series like Sid and Nancy (also featuring Biff Yeager) and The Color of Money (with Bill Cobbs and Ernest Perry, Jr.), followed by supporting roles in such films as the science fiction film Hardware, John Waters' Cry-Baby, the cult action movie Tank Girl (co-starring Reg E. Cathey, Ann Cusack, Jeff Kober, Charles Lucia, Malcolm McDowell, and Lori Petty), Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, the drama The Brave (1997, with Clarence Williams III and Azalea Davila), the action sequel The Crow: City of Angels (with Shelly Desai), the comedy Snow Day and the vampire-musical comedy Suck (with McDowell and Nicole de Boer) and "The Adventures of Pete and Pete". He recently voiced a character in Seth MacFarlane's series American Dad! along with Miguel Ferrer, Scott Grimes, Wendy Schaal and Patrick Stewart.