Walter Koenig, who died at 90, once mocked Star Trek’s wobbly-looking Styrofoam rocks and dismissed the show as ‘phony’

Walter Koenig, the beloved Star Trek character best known by fans for playing the fiercely loyal navigator Pavel Chekov of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk, has died. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed his passing at 90, citing his representative's statement.

As per a social media post by Zachery McGinnis, the founder of Galactic Productions, Koenig died of “old age at home in North Hollywood” surrounded by his daughter and niece. No cause of death was provided knwon.

“Today we mourn the passing of Walter Koenig, whose talent, warmth, and unforgettable performances left a lasting mark on generations of fans around the world,” McGinnis wrote in the post. “Walter’s legacy extends far beyond the screen. Through countless convention appearances and interactions with fans, he shared his kindness, wit, and appreciation with everyone fortunate enough to meet him. He understood what Star Trek meant to people and embraced the community that grew around it,” it continues.


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In a 2013 interview for the TV Academy Foundation, Koenig revealed that he had never seen the series and initially dismissed Star Trek as fake, before joining the cast. “I’d flip through the channels, and I’d see Styrofoam rocks - they were so obviously Styrofoam - and I said, ‘This has got to be phony.’ I didn’t give it a chance,” he recalled.

He also shared a funny story in the interview about what happened after his Star Trek audition. Koenig was lonely, waiting and wondering in the outer office if he had gotten the job, when he was approached by a man who struggled to pronounce his name and asked to follow him into the wardrobe room.

“He drops on his knees in front of me,” Koenig laughingly said, “and takes my crotch in his hand, and I’m saying, ‘What are you doing?!” I didn’t see the tape-measuring ruler in his other hand, and he was measuring from my crotch to my cuff to decide how long my pants should be. He says, ‘You do have to have a costume, don’t you?’


“That's the inauspicious way that I learned that I was on Star Trek,” which is going to change his life in the next 45 years, he remembered.

Other than the Star Trek franchise, Koenig was also known for playing the villain Alfred Bester on another sci-fi space series, Babylon 5. Koenig was actually a child of Lithuanian immigrants born in 1936 in Chicago, but raised in Manhattan, before starting his acting career in 1962.

He joined Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek during the second season and appeared in 36 of the 50 episodes that aired between 1967 and 1969. He performed his role as Chekov in the first seven Paramount movies derived from the show, which aired from 1979 to 1991.