American actor and writer who played Ensign Pavel Chekov from the second season of The Original Series through seven films.
Walter Koenig (1936–2026) was an American actor and screenwriter. He began acting professionally in the mid-1960s and was cast in 1967 as Pavel Chekov, a young Russian navigator added to the Enterprise bridge crew for the second season.
Koenig played Chekov for the rest of the original series and in seven feature films, from Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Star Trek Generations. Chekov did not appear in The Animated Series, but Koenig wrote its episode The Infinite Vulcan, becoming one of the first Star Trek actors to write for the franchise. He also published a memoir of making the first film, Chekov's Enterprise.
Outside Star Trek he was known for playing the telepath Alfred Bester in Babylon 5, and he wrote and acted in other science fiction projects and comics. He died in October 2026 at the age of ninety.