Star Trek legend Walter Koenig dies aged 90

The young face of the Enterprise

Chekov was partly created to bring a younger energy to the show.

Koenig said the character was originally called Jones, with producers hoping to appeal to the same young audience that adored Davy Jones of The Monkees.

It worked.

“And indeed, my [fan] mail was from people who were 8- to 14-years-old,” he said. “They said, “I think you’re groovy, I love your hair’ — which was a wig, by the way. I got hundreds and hundreds of letters, the third most after Bill [Shatner] and [Leonard [Nimoy]].”

That famous hair wasn’t the only illusion.

Koenig joked that Chekov’s appeal eventually faded somewhat once fans learned more about the man playing him.

He said there were three reasons: “the hair wasn’t real; I wasn’t really Russian, and that exotic flavor was gone; and [viewers found out] that I was married, and they couldn’t fantasize about being with Chekov. Things then started to take a nosedive.”

Although Chekov wasn’t always given much to do in the original series, Koenig understood his place in the crew.

He once described his job as helping “set out the bones of the plot and let McCoy, Spock and Kirk fill in it.”

But Star Trek didn’t end for Koenig when the original show disappeared from television.

Far from it.

He returned as Pavel Andreievich Chekov in the first seven Star Trek movies, beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 and continuing through Star Trek Generations in 1994.

Suffered a heart attack

Koenig’s career, however, stretched far beyond one character.

After worrying that Star Trek might leave him typecast, he increasingly turned to writing, contributing episodes to shows including Land of the Lost, Family, The Powers of Matthew Star and The Incredible Hulk.

Years later, another generation of science-fiction fans discovered him as Alfred Bester on Babylon 5.

The role almost never happened.

At 56, Koenig suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery, forcing him to miss an earlier opportunity to appear on the series.

Koenig also wrote books about his life, including his 1998 memoir Warped Factors: A Neurotic’s Guide to the Universe and 2020’s Beaming Up and Getting Off.

Tragic death of his son

Away from the cameras, Koenig shared an extraordinarily long marriage with actress Judy Levitt.

The couple married in July 1965, before Star Trek had even entered his life, and remained together for more than 57 years.

Levitt, who appeared alongside her husband in several Star Trek films as well as Babylon 5, died in December 2022 at the age of 83.

The family had already endured an unimaginable loss years earlier.

Their son, actor Andrew Koenig — remembered by many television fans as Richard “Boner” Stabone on Growing Pains — died by suicide in 2010 at the age of 41.

Koenig is survived by his daughter, actress and screenwriter Danielle Koenig, who is married to comedian Jimmy Pardo.