Walter Koenig

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).

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.

In 1964, Koenig portrayed a New York City juvenile gang leader in an adaptation of Memos from Purgatory for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

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, including Star Trek Generations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Koenig was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of businessman Isadore Koenig and his wife Sarah (née Strauss).

They moved to the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan when Walter was a child, where he went to school.

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 "Königsberg" to "Koenig".

Koenig's father was a communist who was investigated by the FBI during the McCarthy era.

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.

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.

After Star Trek, and before the 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?.

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.

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", but the two actors have since become good friends, to the point that Koenig was the best man at Takei's wedding in 2008.

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.

"The Infinite Vulcan" makes him the first cast member to write a Star Trek story for television.

He 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.