American actor and screenwriter (born 1936)
Walter Marvin Koenig
(
; born September 14, 1936) is an American actor and screenwriter. He began acting professionally in the mid-1960s and quickly rose to prominence for his supporting role as Ensign
Pavel Chekov
in
Star Trek: The Original Series
(1967?1969). He went on to reprise this role in all six original-cast
Star Trek
films, and later voiced President Anton Chekov in
Star Trek: Picard
(2023). He has also acted in several other series and films including
Goodbye, Raggedy Ann
(1971),
The Questor Tapes
(1974), and
Babylon 5
(1993). In addition to his acting career, Koenig has made a career in writing as well and is known for working on
Land of the Lost
(1974),
Family
(1976),
What Really Happened to the Class of '65?
(1977) and
The Powers of Matthew Star
(1982).
Early life
[
edit
]
Koenig was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of businessman Isadore Koenig and his wife Sarah (nee Strauss).
[
citation needed
]
[1]
They moved to the
Inwood
neighborhood of Manhattan when Walter was a child, where he went to school.
[2]
[3]
Koenig's parents were
Russian Jewish
immigrants from the
Soviet Union
; his family had been living in
Lithuania
when they emigrated, and they shortened their surname from "
Konigsberg
" to "Koenig".
[4]
Koenig's father was a
communist
who was investigated by the FBI during the
McCarthy
era.
[5]
Koenig attended
Grinnell College
in
Grinnell, Iowa
, with a
pre-med
major. He transferred to
UCLA
and received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. After a professor encouraged Koenig to become an actor, he attended
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre
in New York City with fellow students
Dabney Coleman
,
Christopher Lloyd
, and
James Caan
.
[4]
Career
[
edit
]
Early work
[
edit
]
In
Gene Roddenberry
's first television production, the 1963?64 NBC series
The Lieutenant
, Koenig played a significant role as noncom Sgt. John Delwyn, who is recommended for
Officer Candidates School
by the series protagonist, Lt William T. (Tiberius) Rice, played by
Gary Lockwood
; (in episode 27, "Mother Enemy", aired on April 4, 1964). The plot twist, at the height of the US?Soviet
Cold War
, is that Sgt Delwyn's visiting mother is a prominent, and politically active,
American Communist Party
member. This sets up various interesting plot tensions involving Delwyn, Rice, and Rice's CO, Capt. Rambridge, played by
Robert Vaughn
.
[
citation needed
]
In 1964, Koenig portrayed a New York City juvenile gang leader in an adaptation of
Memos from Purgatory
for
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
.
Star Trek
[
edit
]
I was one of only two people who auditioned for the part, which is quite extraordinary. Considering that this has so materially affected the last 35 years of my life ... a couple of hours after I auditioned I heard that I had gotten the role.
[6]
Koenig began playing Ensign Pavel Chekov, navigator on the
USS
Enterprise
, in the original
Star Trek
television series in the second season, and continued in the role in all of the films featuring the original cast,
[7]
including
Star Trek Generations
.
[8]
Koenig was unfamiliar with science fiction before being cast on
Star Trek
.
[9]
One of only two actors to audition, he was cast as Chekov almost immediately primarily because of his resemblance to British actor and singer
Davy Jones
of
the Monkees
. Show creator Gene Roddenberry hoped that Koenig would increase the show's appeal to young people. The studio's publicity department, however, falsely ascribed the inclusion of Chekov to an article in
Pravda
that complained about the lack of Russians in
Star Trek
.
[6]
As the 30-year-old's hair was already receding, costume designers fashioned a Davy Jones-style "moptop" hairpiece for him. In later episodes, his own hair grew out enough to accomplish the look with a comb-over.
[10]
Roddenberry asked him to "ham up" his Russian accent to add a note of comic relief to the series. Chekov's accent has been criticized as inauthentic, in particular Koenig's substituting the "w" sound in place of a "v" sound (e.g., "wodka" for "vodka" or most famously "wessel" for "vessel"); Koenig has said the accent was inspired by his father, who had the same difficulty with the "v" sound.
[5]
Most of Koenig's
fan mail
indeed came from children, and the high volume of letters contributed to him soon receiving a contract as a regular cast member; this surprised Koenig, who had been told that Chekov would be a recurring role.
[6]
[11]
When the early Season 2 episodes of
Star Trek
were shot,
George Takei
was delayed while completing the movie
The Green Berets
, so Chekov was joined at the
Enterprise
helm by a different character. When Takei returned, the two had to share a dressing room and a single episode script. This reportedly angered Takei to the point where he nearly left the show, although Koenig observed in a 2016 interview that, while sharing a dressing room with Takei and
James Doohan
, they recognised their status as supporting players, and "didn't think twice about it",
[12]
but the two actors have since become good friends, to the point that Koenig was the best man at Takei's wedding in 2008.
[13]
The Chekov character never appeared in the animated
Star Trek
. Though the show's producers had decided not to cast him for budgetary reasons, and purchased his script for an episode of the series titled "
The Infinite Vulcan
", Koenig later confessed that he was upset at being left out of the cast.
[14]
"The Infinite Vulcan" makes him the first cast member to write a
Star Trek
story for television.
Koenig received
Saturn Award
nominations for
Best Supporting Actor in a Film
for both
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
and
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
. Koenig reprised the role of Chekov for the fan webseries
Star Trek: New Voyages
, "To Serve All My Days", and the independent Sky Conway/
Tim Russ
film,
Star Trek: Of Gods and Men
, both in 2006, and
Star Trek: Renegades
in 2015. According to the teaser for
Renegades
episodes 2 and 3, this would be the last time Koenig played the role of Chekov.
In the last episode of the third season of
Star Trek: Picard
, aired in 2023, Koenig voiced an audio transmission from Federation President Anton Chekov, implied to be Pavel's son; the name references
Anton Yelchin
, who played Chekov in the
J. J. Abrams
-directed
Star Trek
films.
[15]
Later work
[
edit
]
Typecast
as Chekov, Koenig found a great disparity between the adulation from
Trekkies
at
Star Trek
conventions
and his obscurity in Hollywood,
[9]
stating that "people are interested in Chekov, not me".
[16]
Before the
Trek
movies started, Koenig found some work as a writer. He submitted freelance scripts to a number of shows, and was the main writer on the show
What Really Happened to the Class of '65?
.
[17]
After Chekov, Koenig had a recurring role as
Psi Cop
Alfred Bester
on the television series
Babylon 5
. He was a "Special Guest Star" in twelve episodes and, at the end of the third season, the production company applied for an
Emmy
nomination on his behalf. He was slated to play Bester on the spin-off series
Crusade
, but the series was cancelled before his episode was filmed. The character name of "Alfred Bester" was an homage to
the science-fiction writer of the same name
.
[18]
Koenig played "Oro" in two episodes of the Canadian science fiction television series
The Starlost
, which aired in 1973 on Canada's
CTV television network
. He filmed a few
FMV
sequences for a re-released copy of the game
Star Trek Starfleet Academy
for PCs.
[
citation needed
]
The game was later cancelled, but considerable footage from it was recycled for the film
Game Over
, with Koenig's dialogue dubbed over in order to retrofit his performance into the role of a computer
hard drive
.
[
citation needed
]
Koenig's film, stage, and TV roles span fifty years. He has played roles ranging from a teenage gang leader (
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
) to Scandinavian fiance Gunnar in the
Gidget
episode entitled "Gidget's Foreign Policy", to a Las Vegas entertainer (
I Spy
). He returned to space with a starring role in
Moontrap
and played a futuristic dictator in the video game
Maximum Surge
.
[19]
During the early 1990s, he starred in a touring production of the play
The Boys in Autumn
, playing a middle aged
Tom Sawyer
, who reunites with childhood friend
Huckleberry Finn
. Fellow
Trek
actor
Mark Lenard
played Finn.
[20]
In addition to acting, he has written several films (
I Wish I May
,
You're Never Alone When You're a Schizophrenic
), one-act plays, and a handful of episodes for TV shows:
Star Trek: The Animated Series
,
Land of the Lost
,
Family
and
The Powers of Matthew Star
.
He has written several books, including
Warped Factors: A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe
(an autobiography),
Chekov's Enterprise
(a journal kept during the filming of
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
) and
Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot
(a science fiction novel), which was re-released in 2006. He created his own comic book series called
Raver
, which was published by
Malibu Comics
in the early 1990s, and appeared as a "special guest star" in an issue of the comic book
Eternity Smith
, which features him prominently on its cover.
[21]
In 2013, he released the graphic novel
Walter Koenig's Things To Come
with artist J.C. Baez, published by Bluewater Comics, which compiled the four issues of the miniseries of the same name.
[22]
Koenig has taught classes in acting and directing at
UCLA
, the Sherwood Oaks Experimental Film College, the Actor's Alley Repertory Company in Los Angeles, and the
California School of Professional Psychology
at
Alliant International University
. In 2002, he directed stage versions of two of the original
Twilight Zone
episodes for Letter Entertainment.
[23]
In 1987, Koenig directed his original
one-act play
The Secret Life of Lily Langtree
at the
Theatre of NOTE
in Los Angeles. In 1989, Koenig starred in the science fiction film
Moontrap
as mission commander Colonel Jason Grant.
[24]
In 1997, Koenig starred in
Drawing Down the Moon
, an independent film about a
Wiccan
woman who attempts to open a homeless shelter in a small Pennsylvania town. Koenig played Joe Merchant, a local crime lord obsessed with
chaos theory
who sends his thugs to intimidate her into shutting down the shelter.
[25]
In 2004, Koenig co-starred in
Mad Cowgirl
, an independent movie about a meat-packing health inspector dying from a brain disorder, in which he played televangelist Pastor Dylan. The movie played the SF Indiefest and the Silverlake Film Festival, followed by a limited release in major cities.
Mad Cowgirl
was released on DVD on December 5, 2006.
[
citation needed
]
In 2007, he reunited with fellow
Babylon 5
star
Bruce Boxleitner
for the movie
Bone Eater
.
[26]
Koenig received the 2,479th star of the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
on September 10, 2012.
[27]
In 2013, Koenig ventured into the
steampunk
genre, starring in the short film
Cowboys & Engines
alongside
Malcolm McDowell
and
Richard Hatch
.
[28]
He played an evil newspaper tycoon in
Blue Dream
from director
Gregory Hatanaka
. In 2017, Koenig appeared in the 1980s throwback
Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time
from director
Rob Taylor
, battling puppet goblins as science officer Ray Nabroski.
[29]
In 2018, he again appeared opposite Hatch in the science-fiction drama
Diminuendo
, which was Hatch's last performance before his death.
[30]
Humanitarian work
[
edit
]
In 2007, Koenig was asked by the human rights group
U.S. Campaign for Burma
to help in their grassroots campaign about the humanitarian crisis in Burma. As detailed on his official website, he visited refugee camps along the Burma?Thailand border from July 16 to 25, 2007.
Personal life
[
edit
]
Koenig married actress Judy Levitt in 1965; she died in 2022.
[31]
In 1968, they had a son, actor
Andrew
, who died in 2010.
[32]
[33]
They have a daughter, Danielle, a comedienne and writer, who is married to comedian
Jimmy Pardo
.
[34]
In September 2008, Koenig served as best man at the wedding of his
Star Trek
co-star
George Takei
to Brad Altman.
[35]
Koenig was awarded the
Inkpot Award
in 1982.
[36]
Filmography
[
edit
]
Television
[
edit
]
Video games
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Warped Factors: A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe
- Chekov's Enterprise
- Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot
- Raver
(comic book)
- Walter Koenig's Things to Come
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Walter Koenig Biography"
. Yahoo! Movies. April 20, 2011. Archived from
the original
on May 22, 2011
. Retrieved
December 17,
2012
.
- ^
"INTERVIEW: Walter Koenig on his life before and beyond 'Star Trek'
"
.
Hollywood Soapbox
. July 23, 2020
. Retrieved
January 17,
2021
.
- ^
Thompson, Cole (April 15, 2016).
"Famous Inwood Residents"
.
| My Inwood
. Retrieved
January 17,
2021
.
- ^
a
b
"Walter Koenig's Authorized Biography"
.
walterkoenig.com
. Star Traveler Publications
. Retrieved
May 7,
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Jesse Wente interview with Walter Koenig
Archived
July 6, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
,
Q
, CBC Radio, August 28, 2009
- ^
a
b
c
"Walter Koenig ? Chekov in the Original Star Trek"
. BBC. Archived from
the original
on November 15, 2001
. Retrieved
May 7,
2011
.
- ^
"Walter Koenig"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
"Star Trek: Generations (1994) Poster Star Trek: Generations (1994) Full Cast & Crew"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
Star Trek cast on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow, 1976
(Television production). Tomorrow
. Retrieved
March 15,
2024
– via YouTube.
- ^
Vejvoda, Jim and Phil Pirrello. "Star Trek: The Original Series ? Season 2 Review." IGN.com, September 18, 2009.
- ^
Davis, Lauren (September 7, 2013).
"Gene Roddenberry's 1968 memo on improving Star Trek's characters"
.
io9
. Retrieved
September 7,
2013
.
- ^
"
'Star Trek's Walter Koenig on Chekov's Haircut and Other Decades-Old Rumors"
. September 6, 2016.
- ^
Michael Weinfeld (June 5, 2008). "George Takei and partner plan to wed in September".
USA Today
. Associated Press. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
- ^
Mangels, Andy (Summer 2018). "Star Trek: The Animated Series".
RetroFan
(1).
TwoMorrows Publishing
: 28.
- ^
Martin, Michileen (April 20, 2023).
"Star Trek Original Series Actor Returns To The Franchise"
.
GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT
. Retrieved
May 20,
2023
.
- ^
Michaels, Marguerite (December 10, 1978).
"A Visit to Star Trek's Movie Launch"
.
Parade
. pp. 4?7
. Retrieved
June 1,
2022
.
- ^
Shaw, Gabbi.
"WHERE ARE THEY NOW: The cast of 'Star Trek: The Original Series'
"
.
insider.com
. Insider, Inc
. Retrieved
January 2,
2021
.
- ^
"Guide Page: "Ship of Tears"
"
.
www.midwinter.com
. Retrieved
March 11,
2022
.
- ^
"Maximum Surge Packs Plenty of Star Power".
Electronic Gaming Monthly
. No. 75.
Ziff Davis
. October 1995. p. 27.
- ^
Loynd, Ray (August 4, 1990).
"The Twain Meet Again in 'Boys in Autumn'
"
.
Los Angeles Times
.
- ^
"Conflict on Campus".
Eternity Smith
. No. 9.
Hero Comics
. August 1988.
- ^
"MTV Geek ? 'Star Trek's' Walter Koenig Shares What's Next For 'Things To Come'
"
.
MTV Geek
.
- ^
"4 Letter Entertainment"
. 4 Letter Entertainment. Archived from
the original
on February 4, 2012
. Retrieved
December 17,
2012
.
- ^
"Moontrap (1989)"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
"Drawing Down the Moon (1997)"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
"Bone Eater (TV Movie 2007) Poster Bone Eater (2007 TV Movie) Full Cast & Crew"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
"Walter Koenig To Become The Last Star Trek Original To Land Star"
. express.co.uk. August 29, 2012.
- ^
"Cowboys & Engines at IMDB.com"
. IMDB.
- ^
"Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time (2017)"
.
imdb.com
. IMDb, Inc
. Retrieved
January 19,
2020
.
- ^
Richard Hatch's Last Director on His Unflinching Commitment and Seeing Their Film in His Final Days
, February 10, 2017
, retrieved
May 16,
2018
- ^
Macdonald, Susan (December 21, 2022).
"RIP Judy Levitt Koenig"
.
scifi.radio
. Retrieved
December 21,
2022
.
- ^
Duke, Alan (February 25, 2010).
"Missing actor's body found in Vancouver park, source says"
. CNN.
Archived
from the original on February 27, 2010.
- ^
Fisher, Luchina (February 26, 2010).
"Andrew Koenig's Long, Losing Battle With Depression"
.
ABC News
. Retrieved
January 7,
2015
.
- ^
"Danielle Koenig"
.
IMDb
.
- ^
Michael Weinfeld (June 5, 2008).
"George Takei and partner plan to wed in September"
. Associated Press
. Retrieved
October 24,
2008
.
- ^
"Inkpot Award"
.
Comic-Con International: San Diego
. December 6, 2012
. Retrieved
May 20,
2023
.
External links
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