Walter Koenig — actor, director, screenwriter, novelist, acting professor, and comic book creator — played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the orignal Star Trek begining with Season 2.

Born in Manhattan in 1936 to Lithuanian Russian Jewish parents, Koenig was bitten by the acting bug early in his youth. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where he worked with fellow students James Caan, Elizabeth Ashley, and Dabney Coleman. His stage career spans 30 years and includes stops in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and many other cities. He appeared in many plays and television shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the Mr. Novak series, and even produced and wrote his own feature film in 1967, I Wish I May. And then in 1967 came Chekov.

Koenig of course has also played Chekov in the first seven of the big screen Star Trek films and played the recurring character of Alfred Bester in the TV series Babylon 5. Aside from two genre roles, he has appeared in 40 different TV series and television movies, including "Anthony and Cleopatra" starring Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave.
A natural writer, Koenig has written for the television shows