People Cared About Chekov, Not Me: Walter Koenig, 1936-2026

A shared problem I suspect George Takei and Walter Koenig had was being too well known as their Star Trek characters but not well known enough for people to hire them for the stunt casting. It didn’t help that Koenig didn’t have much of a career before he was Chekov. He had just over a dozen credits going in, including an episode of Gidget. He’d appeared on an episode of Roddenberry’s previous show, The Lieutenant, but he didn’t have the career of the others, who could go back to bit parts if they needed to. Koenig was Chekov, and nobody much cared beyond that.

The thirty-something was cast because of a slight resemblance to Davy Jones; his hairline was already receding, so they slapped a wig on him. His accent was borrowed from his father, a Russian Jew named Isadore Königsberg who had emigrated to the US by way of Lithuania with his wife, Sarah. They shortened the family name to Koenig. Despite Russians’ complaining about the whole “nuclear wessels” thing, Koenig said that his father had a hard time with his v’s as well. Koenig had started in pre-med and considered psychology before becoming an actor.

Koenig, Takei, and James Doohan shared a dressing room and, to Takei’s deep frustration, a script copy. I suspect this is another example of budget-pinching on the set of the notoriously low-budget show. Still, he said that they all came to terms with the fact that they were supporting characters, and tension in the room eased. Koenig and Takei spent much of their time on set together, and it became a friendship that lasted the rest of Koenig’s life. He even served as best man at Takei’s wedding in 2008.

He would later say that he received a lot more attention at conventions than he ever did when looking for roles. The fans loved him—well, the fans love anyone even tangentially tied to the show. I say this as someone who went to a Star Trek convention the day of an earthquake and who knows someone who speaks fluent Klingon. But Koenig was one of the big names, and I’d argue that the fans loved him more than they loved at least one major cast member, the more they got to know him. If you know, you know, and you loved Koenig more, too. Koenig had also been the first member of the cast to become a script writer, and he contributed to other series beyond Star Trek.

Relatively recently, he got involved in humanitarian work, becoming part of the US Campaign for Burma. He was probably encouraged in this by his son, Andrew, known to Gen-X as “the guy who played Boner on Growing Pains.” (Andrew died by suicide in 2010.) His voice, familiar to all of us from the helm of the Enterprise, spoke out in support of refugees. I don’t know how he felt about his Communist father, though his plot on The Lieutenant paralleled his real life. I do know that he will be missed.