Walter Marvin Koenig is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in Star Trek and Alfred Bester in Babylon 5. He wrote the script for the 2008 science fiction legal thriller InAlienable. Koenig was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of businessman Isadore Koenig and his wife Sarah . Koenig's parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union; his family lived in Lithuania when they emigrated, and shortened their surname from "Königsberg" to "Koenig". Koenig's father was a communist who was investigated by the FBI during the McCarthy... era. Koenig attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa with a pre-med major. He transferred to UCLA and received a BA in psychology. After a professor encouraged Koenig to become an actor, he attended the Neighborhood Playhouse with fellow students Dabney Coleman, Christopher Lloyd, and James Caan. Koenig played Ensign Pavel Chekov, navigator on the USS Enterprise, in the original Star Trek television series and in several movies featuring the original cast.
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