STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO by Mark Perry

Author:Mark, Perry [Mark, Perry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

-CHEKOV

Koenig was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of businessman Isadore Koenig and his wife Sarah (née Strauss). They moved to Manhattan when Walter was a child, where he went to school. Koenig's parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union; his family lived in Lithuania when they emigrated, and shortened their surname from "Königsberg" to "Koenig".

Koenig's father was a communist who was investigated by the FBI during the McCarthy era. Koenig attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa with a pre-med major. He transferred to UCLA and received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. After a professor encouraged Koenig to become an actor, he attended the Neighborhood Playhouse with fellow students Dabney Coleman,Christopher Lloyd, and James Caan.

Koenig played Ensign Pavel Chekov, navigator on the USS Enterprise, in the original Star Trek television series (starting in Season 2) and in all of the movies featuring the original cast (including Star Trek Generations).

One of only two actors to audition, he was cast as Chekov almost immediately primarily because of his resemblance to British actor/musician Davy Jones of the Monkees.

Show creator Gene Roddenberry hoped that Koenig would increase the show's appeal to young people. As the 30-year old's hair was already receding, costume designers fashioned a Davy Jones-style "mop top" hairpiece for him. In later episodes, his own hair grew out enough to accomplish the look with a comb-over.

The studio's publicity department, however, falsely ascribed the inclusion of Chekov to an article in Pravda that complained about the lack of Russians in Star Trek. Roddenberry asked him to "ham up" his Russian accent to add a note of comic relief to the series.

Chekov's accent has been criticized as inauthentic, in particular Koenig's substituting the "w" sound in place of a "v" sound (e.g., "wodka" for "vodka"); Koenig has said the accent was inspired by his father, who had the same difficulty with the "v" sound.

Most of Koenig's fan mail indeed came from children, and the high volume of letters contributed to him soon receiving a contract as a regular cast member; this surprised Koenig, who had been told that Chekov would be a recurring role. When the early Season 2 episodes of Star Trek were shot, George Takei (who played Sulu) was delayed while completing the movie The Green Berets, so Chekov is joined at the Enterprise helm by a different character.

When Takei returned, the two had to share a dressing room and a single episode script. This reportedly angered Takei to the point where he nearly left the show, but the two actors have since become good friends, to the point that Koenig was the best man at Takei's wedding in 2008. The image of their two characters manning the helm of the Enterprise became iconic.

Koenig's Chekov character never appeared in the animated Star Trek due to budget reasons, however, he is credited with writing an episode of that series titled "The Infinite Vulcan", making him the first "original cast" member to write a Star Trek story for television. He received

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