Walter Koenig, who memorably played Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series and seven “Star Trek” feature films, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 90 years old.
Koenig’s Chekov, an arrogant young navigation officer in the original series, was introduced into the series to attract teenage audiences – his hairstyle reminded the Monkees’ Davy Jones.
Russian-born Chekov was also used to poke fun at the Soviet way of taking false credit for every significant human invention.
Koenig played Chekov in the 2015 TV movie “Star Trek: Renegades,” which was set when the character was elevated to Admiral. The film, intended as a backdoor pilot for the new “Star Trek” television series, was funded through crowdsourcing.
The Chekov character was not included in “Star Trek: The Animated Series” in the early 70s due to the show’s limited budget, but Koenig wrote an episode of the series called “The Infinite Vulcan”.
Koenig’s Chekov was central to the story of 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” and as a result the actor enjoyed considerable screen time in the film, which is generally considered the best of the “Star Trek” films.
Koenig is also working on another sci-fi franchise, J. He was also attached to Michael Straczynski’s “Babylon 5”, in which he played rogue psi cop Alfred Bester (named by the show’s creators after the science fiction author). He appeared in 12 episodes of that show from 1994–98.
Walter Marvin Koenig was born in Chicago. The family, of Russian Jewish heritage, was originally named Koenigsberg, and he attended Fieldston High School in Fieldston, NY, before beginning at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he initially did pre-med; He transferred to UCLA and graduated with a degree in psychology. After a professor urged him to pursue a career in acting, he began studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York; His classmates there included Christopher Lloyd, with whom he would reunite in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”, in which Lloyd played the villainous Klingon Commander Krug, along with James Caan and Dabney Coleman.
Koenig shouted “Combat!” Made her small screen debut with an undisclosed role in an episode of. In 1962, this was followed by guest roles on “The Untouchables,” “General Hospital,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Ben Casey,” “Gidget” and “I Spy.” After the original “Star Trek” series went off the air in 1969, he worked occasionally in TV, making guest appearances on “The Virginian,” “Ironside” and “Columbo” (in an episode in which William Shatner was the special guest star). He played a deputy sheriff in a mediocre low-budget film called “Nightmare Honeymoon” starring Dick Rambo.
During the 1980s, while he was busy with the “Star Trek” films, he appeared as Pompeii in the 1983 TV adaptation of “Antony and Cleopatra,” also starring Nichelle Nichols and future “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” captain James Avery.
The actor appeared in several low-budget science fiction films over the years, including “Moontrap”, in which he starred, and “Deadly Weapon”, both in 1989; as well as the Cynthia Rothrock martial arts vehicle “Sworn to Justice” in 1996 and the independent horror film “Mad Cowgirl” in 2006.
A one-character film, “You’re Never Alone When You’re a Schizophrenic,” written and performed by Koenig, was screened at the 1996 New York Film Festival.
He voiced Chekov in a variety of “Star Trek” videogames, including 1998’s “Starfleet Academy: Chekov’s Lost Missions”.
The actor guest-starred in an episode titled “Where No Woman Has Gone Before” of the CBS sitcom “Almost Perfect” in 1997, and voiced himself in a 2002 episode of “Futurama” titled “Where No Fan Has Gone Before”, which featured the voices of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, in addition to other “Star Trek” regulars. He also guest-starred in “Diagnosis Murder” (in an episode that featured several other “Star Trek” cast members) and “Son of the Beach”.
He wrote the 2008 sci-fi legal thriller “Inalienable”, in which he also appeared (the tagline was “From the Mind of Walter Koenig”).
Koenig’s stage career also spanned three decades.
In the early 1990s he toured with Mark Lennard (who played Spock’s father Sarek in “Star Trek”) in “The Boys in Autumn”, in which Koenig played a middle-aged Tom Sawyer who is reunited with Lennard’s Huckleberry Finn after decades of separation.
Koenig also directed theatre, including ” Hotel Paradisso” for Company of Angels, “Beckett” for Theater 40, “America Hooray!” at the Oxford Theatre, “Twelve Angry Men” at the Rita Hayworth Theatre, “The Matrix” at the Gascon Theater Institute and “Three by Ten” at Actors Alley in Los Angeles.
Koenig taught acting classes at UCLA, Actors Alley, and elsewhere.
His satirical fantasy novel “Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot” was re-released in 2006; He created the comic book “Raver”, published by Malibu Comics. In 2013 Bluewater Comics published the graphic novel “Walter Koenig’s Things to Come”.
Koenig wrote the memoirs “Chekov’s Enterprise: A Personal Journal of the Making of Star Trek – The Motion Picture”, published in 1980, and “Warped Factors – A Neurotic’s Guide to the Universe”, published in 1998.
Anton Yelchin played the much younger Chekov in the rebooted “Star Trek” movies.
There was a period of tension between Koenig and George Takei, who played Sulu, during the days of the original “Star Trek” series, but the two became close friends and in September 2008, Koenig served as best man at Takei’s wedding to Brad Altman.
Koenig has a daughter, actress-writer Danielle Koenig. A son, actor and editor Andrew Koenig, died in 2010.