Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on the original Star Trek series, has died at age 90.
“The late actor’s rep tells us … Walter’s daughter, Danielle, and his niece were by his side when he died of old age at his home in North Hollywood on Sunday,” TMZ reports.
Koenig joined the NBC series Star Trek in its second season as the USS Enterprise’s Russian crewmember Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov. With his Beatles-style mop of hair, the boyish Chekov was meant to appeal to younger viewers a la Davy Jones of The Monkees.
As Chekov, Koenig would appear in the latter two seasons of the original series and then in all six feature films featuring the cast.
With Koenig’s death, only William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and George Takei (Mr. Sulu) remain alive from the original cast.
Takei took to social media to salute his longtime co-star:
Marvin Walter Koenig was born in Chicago on Sept. 14, 1936. The Hollywood Reporter recounts that he studied at Neighborhood Playhouse in New York alongside future sci-fi and comedy icon Christopher Lloyd, who would star opposite Koenig in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
After Star Trek was canceled – and the character of Chekov was left out of the animated series – Koenig turned to writing episodic television series.
Following Star Trek, Koenig returned to the sci-fi genre with his role as Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. In 2017, Koenig reprised the role of Chekov (as “The Admiral”) for the crowdsourced online series Renegades.
Koenig was widowed in 2022 after the death of his wife Judy. His son, Growing Pains actor Andrew Koenig, committed suicide in 2010.
You can read our archival interview with the Trek legend from 2024 where he looked back on the good, the bad, and the hilarious after 57 years of the franchise.
Jim Vejvoda (he/him) is IGN’s Assoc. Director of Entertainment Content.
