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Walter Marvin Koenig (born September 14, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, best known for his roles as Chekov in Star Trek, and as Bester on the series Babylon 5.
Background Koenig is of Russian Jewish descent, but his family emigrated from Lithuania, USSR and changed their surname from Koenigsberg to Koenig. He attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa with a pre-med major. He transferred to UCLA and received a BA in psychology. He has been married since 1965 to Judy Levitt and has one son, Josh Andrew Koenig. Danielle Koenig, one of the writers for Invader Zim, is his daughter. Koenig had heart bypass surgery in 1993. His role in Babylon 5 came out of that incident since his hospitalization forced him to bow out of a guest spot. The series producer promised to make it up to him for the lost opportunity and got the role later on. Career Koenig played the navigator Pavel Chekov on the USS ''Enterprise'' in the original Star Trek (TOS) television series and in the several movies that featured the original cast. He was cast as Chekov because of his resemblance to Davy Jones to attract a younger audience, especially girls. Gene Roddenberry asked him to "ham up" his Russian accent to add a note of comedy relief to the series. 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. Walter reprised his role of Pavel 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. After Chekov, his best-known role is the Psi Cop Alfred Bester on the television series Babylon 5. Koenig was the "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. Walter's film, stage and TV roles span a fifty year time span. He has played everything from a teenage gang leader (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) to a middle-aged Tom Sawyer (The Boy's In Autumn). He returned to space with a starring role in Moontrap and played a computer hard drive in Game Over: Maximum Surge. His most recent role was as a "slimy-sex-addicted" televangelist in Mad Cowgirl. In addition to acting, he has written several films (Actor, I Wish I May, You're Never Alone When You're a Schizophrenic), one-act plays, and a handful of episodes for TV shows: Star Trek: The Animated Series, Land of the Lost, Family and The Powers of Matthew Star. Walter has also written several books, including Warped Factors: A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe (autobiography), Chekov's Enterprise (a journal kept during the filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot (a science fiction novel), which was rereleased in 2006. He also created his own comic book series called Raver, which was published by Malibu Comics in the early 1990s. Walter Koenig has taught classes in acting and directing at UCLA, the Sherwood Oaks Experiment Film College, the Actor's Alley Repertory Company in Los Angeles, and the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University. He instituted theatre programs at a summer camp for disturbed children in upstate New York as well as for a settlement house in New York City. In 2002, Koenig directed stage versions of two of the original Twilight Zone episodes for 4 Letter Entertainment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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