Star Trek’s Pavel Checkov may have started as a lowly Ensign but finished his epic space career as an Admiral in the futuristic world created by Gene Roddenberry.
In the fantastical universe on the Starship Enterprise, it was a near warp-speed journey for US actor Walter Koenig that included 3 years of the original TV series, seven feature films, and countless voicings of his character Ensign Checkov in animated films and video games.
But while Walter will forever be associated with the Star Trek phenomenon he’d already begun to carve out a Hollywood acting career back in the 1960’s, appearing in episodes of Gidget, Ben Casey, Mr Novak, Mannix and The Untouchables.
Then, after the Star Trek stories moved on to the new generation of characters and actors, Walter expanded his career options with many other roles in film and TV including script-writing, directing TV and theatrical productions and drama coaching.
Now, while Walter is of Russian heritage, his character was Russian and he spoke with a Russian accent, he was actually born in Chicago in 1936.
I caught up with him back in 1986, just after he’d finished shooting Star Trek: The Voyage Home, or Star Trek 4 as it’s referred to, when he came to Australia for a Time Warp Convention.
In 2023 Walter turns 87.
His most recent appearance as Admiral Chekov was in the pilot of Star Trek: Renegades back in 2015. It never got a release but in 2017 evolved into Renegades, a 2 part, fan-funded mini series that also featured fellow Original Series star Nichelle Nichols.
Legal issues precluded the producers from using original character names so only their rankings were used.
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1 авг 2024
