Walter Koenig, Star Trek's Chekov, Dies at 90
Seven Lights
Walter Koenig, best known as Pavel Chekov, the jocular Russian navigator of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek, has died. He was 90. Radio host and family friend Jesse Thorne confirmed the death through Koenig’s daughter, Danielle.
Koenig joined the Enterprise crew in 1967, during the original series’ second season, cast as an appeal to young Monkees fans and, legend has it, Russian television viewers. The short-statured actor was given a Beatles wig and a thick Russian accent that drew frequent criticism; he claimed he picked up the character’s “W” and “V” confusion from his own father.
He was born in Chicago on September 14, 1936, to Russian immigrants who had fled the Soviet Union. After a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCLA, he studied acting at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse alongside Christopher Lloyd and James Caan. One of his first television roles was Sgt. John Delwyn in Gene Roddenberry’s The Lieutenant, Roddenberry’s first television production; he also appeared on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Gidget and I Spy.
Chekov appeared with the original crew in several Star Trek films, including The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home, performances that earned Koenig Saturn Award nominations. Away from the franchise, his most prominent role was Alfred Bester, the telepath on Babylon 5, a part SlashFilm singled out as perhaps his finest science-fiction work. He said farewell to Star Trek in a 2023 episode of Star Trek: Picard, voicing President Anton Chekov, a character created as a tribute to Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the 2008 reboot.
Koenig married Judy Levitt in 1965. They had two children: Andrew, who played Mike Seaver’s best friend Boner on Growing Pains before becoming an environmental activist, and Danielle, a television writer. Levitt died in 2002.
George Takei, his co-star as Hikaru Sulu, paid tribute with a navigator’s farewell: “Keep Navigating a Steady Course.” Koenig spent more than half a century on screens big and small — and, as the AV Club noted, went boldly where no one had gone before.