Ensign Chekov is portrayed by Walter Koenig, an unusually likeable young man and a highly talented actor. Interestingly enough, both his parents were born in Russia.
He grew up in New York in the Inwood area of Manhattean. He went to public school--P.S. 52 and P.S. 98--through the sixth grade. All secondary education was accomplished at Fieldston high School of Ethical Culture School System in Riverdale, New York. Walter's first acting was done there when he played the title role in his sophomore year production of Peer Gynt and again in his senior year production of Shaw's Devil's Disciple.
During the summer months he worked in camps for underprivileged children in upstate New York. There he instituted a theater program, which was, in truth, a thinly degused psycho-drama for disturbed and overaggressive youngster. Later he incorporated this same program into the camps' parenst settlement house in the Lower East Side of New York. To his knowledge, it is today still a valuable adjunct on the settlement house community itinerary.
Walter spent his first two years of college at Grinnell College in Iowa as a pre-med major, while at the same time his father and brother, he moved to the West Coast and completed his education at UCLA. He graduated from there with a B.A. in psychology, but with the encouragement of Professor Arthur Friedman, whose class was the only theater arts course he took in college, he returned to New York. With Professor Friedman's recommendation he was enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He second year at the Playhouse was rewarded by a scholarship offer from the school's regents.
During this period money was scarce, and for six months, at 98 cents per hour, he lived on $75 a month. After a couple of years off Broadway, he returned to L.A. to play a variety of interesting roles on the local stage and television. His first television lead was in actuality only his second filmed television part. He played a Russion student defection from behind the Iron Curtain on the "Mr. Novak" series. Since then he has played an Armenian grape picker on "Great Adventure," a Swedish businesman on "Gidget," an Arbian rock and roll singer on "I Spy," and a French resistance fighter on "Jericho." Koenig also apperared in a "Lieutenant" episode, in which he gave an excellent performance.
On the stage he played three roles in the highly acclained theater group production of The Deputy: a Jewish refugee, a Nazi sergeant, and a Catholic monk. His most recent theater experience was as the Welsh psychopathic murderer in the Angels Theater production of Night Must Fall. For this performace Walter received rave reviews from the Los Angeles Times and Daily Variety.
Walter has been married two years, and his wife, Judy Levitt, is an accomplished actress in her own right.