I had the privilege of meeting Walter Koenig at Vulkon ’89 on March 5, 1989, which happened to be my 26th birthday. He was witty, a great speaker, and shared some interesting anecdotes about his acting career. Mostly, of course, Star Trek: The Original Series and the first five feature films Paramount had made up to that time. I still have (somewhere) an autographed photo with a “Happy birthday” greeting that he signed for me at the convention.
RIP Walter Koenig (1936-2026)
Comments
5 responses to “RIP Walter Koenig (1936-2026)”
-
-
I’ve only been to one Star Trek convention, so he’s the only Enterprise bridge crew member I met in person.
It’s too bad that Star Trek: The Original Series is a 1960s show centered around a lead actor and two major supporting cast members. Not because I don’t like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, or DeForest Kelley, but because I think that the spinoff series made during the “ensemble” series era would have given Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and George Takei more opportunities to shine. (Doohan, as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, admittedly got some good bits in key episodes, but we really had only a few episodes that leaned on his skills set as a “miracle worker.”)
-
Completely agreed. It’s unfortunate that the realities of 1960s television meant that Chekov, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty were all pretty one-dimensional characters who were mostly there to spout expositional dialogue. I’ve really enjoyed how the recent Strange New Worlds series has so successfully developed Uhura into a three-dimensional individual.
-
-
-
Share your thoughts with the world!