Interviews with Walter Koenig

Star Trek: The Original Series

Fans and the Star Trek Phenomenon....

FAN MAIL

"When the show was still in production," says Koenig, "I was being pushed by Sixteen magazine, so I received an enormous flood of letters. At one time, I was getting about 650 letters a week ... which was about the same as the other people on the show were getting at that time.

"Some of them I got into correspondences with, the ones who were most interesting or most touching or, most intelligent; the letters that were a little bit more than 'Would you please send me a photograph?' All girls, I think. They wrote me from all over the country. I remember one girl, I think she was in New York, she kept writing to me and it really seemed to me like she had a lot of problems, but she was an interesting girl. But she was always denigrating herself and putting herself down. There was a big lapse between her eighth and ninth letter, and then finally she wrote to me and told me that she hoped I wouldn't, stop liking her, but she was black. Well, that was silly. I wrote to her and said, 'Absurd ... I'm Jewish, so what the hell does that mean? Why should it make any difference one way or the other?' And she responded to that, and we went on writing for a few months after that.

"I had kids writing me from deaf school too. I used to send them scripts and things. And I got letters from college students; we had long drawn-out debates about what we were doing and what I was doing specifically on the show. Now that the show has moved out of the states, I've gotten letters from all over. I've gotten them from Korea, Vietnam, Germany, England the show was very big in England. There were letters from behind the Iron Curtain, even. I got some from Hungary or Czechoslovakia or someplace like that - I couldn't tell, they were in a foreign language.

"I still have most of the letters. I have them out in my garage. Five mail sacks full. I finally had to dispose of some of them though. I just didn't have any more, room. All that mail - I never did get used to it." (Gerrold, 1973)

At the time, the whole idea of getting fan mail was so novel to me that I read every single letter I got, which took up a lot of my spare time, but there was nothing about politics. I remember reading a letter to an editor from some guy in Idaho about why they had a Russian on an American show, but even that was relatively mild. I don't think that was controversial. Had Chekov been a commanding character in charge, an authoritative figure, then perhaps people would have felt threatened by it. (Navarro, 1997)

"There was one thing that happened that hit me in a funny way. A sad thing, really. I was getting an awful lot of mail, but I was getting it a month after it was sent because it was coming through the United Fan Mail Service. Some of it would go to Paramount first and then the service. And some of it would go to NBC and then to Paramount and finally the service. And finally, I would get it. Anyway, I got a letter from a couple of parents who had a little girl who was ill, quite ill, and she had heard that I had a dog, and she wanted a snapshot of my dog, and the parents asked if I would send her the snapshot of the dog, which I did as soon as I got the letter - but this was three or four weeks after it bad been sent. I sent the picture with a little note on the back and I got back a reply from the parents, thanking me, but telling me that the child had passed away. It was really be sad. But the interesting part of the episode was that they asked me if I wanted this to publicized, they would be glad to send it over to their local newspaper. But I said no, I, didn't want publicity that capitalized on someone else's grief. But it was interesting the way people come to think about TV shows and actors."

"There were nice things that happened too. There was a little girl from Pennsylvania who had been corresponding with me, very sweet girl about 15 and quite bright. She mentioned that she and her mother would like to come out and visit the set and I took it all quite literal and said, 'That'd be great. If you come out, we'll have to say hello.' And that must have sounded like an invitation because they came right out. She was a very lovely kid and the mother bad made every effort to make the whole trip happier it must have meant an awful lot to both of them. Well, I had alerted the rest of the cast, and it was really beautiful. Everybody was just terrific to her. They knew she had come in from Pennsylvania and they were really sweet. Nichelle, Bill, Leonard, everyone - so the kid was in heaven. She and her mother spent the whole day there with us and she really had a ball. She stayed in town for about a week after that, and I took her out to lunch one day. We still correspond. She's in college now, studying literature and drama." (Gerrold, 1973)

THE PHENOMENON

As the actor who brought life to Pavel Andreievich Chekov. Few people are better qualified to talk about the 30 year history of Gene Roddenberry's universe than Walter Koenig . "Star Trekis a very positive statement about the future of mankind," says Koenig, explaining why he feels Star Trek has grown into the world-wide phenomenon that it is today. "We will achieve a state where people who are from all different cultures, religions and races can work in harmony. A lot of science fiction seems to accent the Armageddon quality of the future or the prospects for what lies ahead. Star Trek says that if you hang in there we will be better than we are now. I think that's a very rewarding and very positive statement."

In addition to providing us with much-needed hope for the future of our world, Koenig feels the Star Trek phenomenon reaches us in another equally important way as well. "I think it also appeals to the imagination that many of us, through circumstances and age, are forced to discard as we grow older. In that respect, it appeals to the youngsters in us, offering us the ability to create or imagine what is the fantasy that we leave behind as we grow older. It keeps us young."

Koenig has an interesting analogy that he feels explains why Star Trek in particular has achieved such a lasting hold on the cultural consciousness. "Ultimately Star Trek's durability, in all its manifestations in all four of the different series, is partly contributable to the fact that we've achieved the status of an institution, an institution not unlike that of a sports team. The personnel change, just like the members of a team change, but you still root for the team. You identify with that team and that logo. It becomes a part of your life. There are people who live and die with the success of the Dodgers or the Atlanta Braves or whatever it might be, and I think that there's that sense of dedication in Star Trek fans.

"Star Trek represents something that has dignity, that is not frivolous, that speaks well of Humanity, and I think they like that association and want to feel a part of that." (Navarro, 1997)

Regarding Star Trek's robust health on its 25th anniversary, Koenig shakes his head in amazement. "No one could ever imagine this! I've said this before - when Gene Roddenberry called us in spring '69 and said the show had been cancelled, it has been a pleasure working with you, I hope we all can do it again someday. there was no hint of prophecy in that comment. It was a salutation: it was polite and a nice way of parting. Certainly none of us ever conceived that it would go on this way."

Why has Star Trek maintained its appeal for two-and-a-half decades. transmuted along the way from stripped-down rerun to pop culture icon? Koenig settles in to answer the question, resembling a professor launching into a favorite lecture. It's obviously well-considered territory, blending Koenig's academic background in psychology with his intimate knowledge of entertainment media.

"Certainly, the dimensionality of the characters and their relationships. They weren't cardboard characters, they weren't superheroes; they all had fallibility. They all responded to situations with the exception of Spock, in an 'everyman' kind of way. Including Kirk. We hated. we loved, we bickered. we envied became frustrated -- and at the same time, we were involved in heroic adventures. So, we put an audience in a setting that's adventuresome, very colorful and exciting, and yet we're able to identify with characters who remain human throughout it all."

"The innovative quality of the best of our stories, the fact that there was real science fiction happening here, not simply extrapolations from other milieus, was important. We engaged good science fiction writers, not simply journeymen.

"What has been most stated, I guess was the positive perspective of the future," he adds, "it's not doomsday; it's not armageddon. We manage to move into the 23rd century with hope and a sense of accomplishment. We have made great strides in eliminating many of man's foibles.

"And finally, what I think has happened during these years of syndication -- and it's a thing you learn in sociology -- is that if you repeat something often enough, people begin to buy the message. We've been on television for so long -- and not only on a weekly basis, but on a daily and multi-daily basisthat we have become entrenched in the American consciousness and become a part of the extended American family.

"And finally -- I realize I said finally before, but this is really 'finally,'" Koenig notes, "there's a solidarity. These seven cast members, these seven people, have been together for 25 years. People's marriages don't last that long. Their jobs don't last that long. The cities in which they live in don't last that long.

"We're a society that's constantly breaking up and changing and moving on. I think there's a comfort and a feeling of stability we project that's gratifying to many people. There are certain things that are always going to be there. That's appealing to people." (Stephens, 1991)

STAR TREK AND WK

Looking back on his three decade long association with Star Trek, Walter Koenig is philosophical about the role the classic science fiction series has had on his career. "I'll always be enormously grateful to Star Trek. There's no question about it, because I could very well not be acting now if the income I derived from it hadn't been able to sustain my family. I have the fondest feelings about Star Trek, but it's certainly true that it was limiting. I suffered to a degree from type-casting, but I also take into account the fact that this is an industry where the supply far exceeds demand."

"I feel fortunate to have been able to earn a living, but at the same time, it really began to bother me that the legacy I was leaving behind was this one guy with the funny accent who kept saying, 'Warp Factor 4'. It really disturbed me, particularly since I had a brush with my own mortality three years ago when I suffered a cardiac incident, and required a quadruple bypass. I became very conscious of finite existence, and felt I needed to make a statement, or at least something that spoke about more than just my involvement with Star Trek."

";The curious thing is that it might all dry up tomorrow, but things now appear to be moving in the right direction. I have had inquiries about doing other things - Babylon 5 has gone 180 degrees from what I was doing on Star Trek, and I absolutely love that show. There have also been some independent features that I've been talking to people about, and I feel a lot better about my career than I have at any other point." (Navarro, 1997)

LAST TIME FOR CHEKOV?

As Star Trek: First Contact approaches, the era of the original series cast really does draw to a close. After 30 years with Star Trek, is Koenig prepared to leave Pavel Chekov behind? Or does he think that we may see him again? "I think you've seen him for the last time. Of course, I said that after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so I guess anything is possible. But I feel that, just as Star Trek looks to the future, it's part of my responsibility to myself to look to the future as well. Not be immersed in Star Trek. I need to move on." (Anders, 1996)

MESSAGE FOR FANS

TLH: Anything you'd like to say to our readers before we close?

WALTER: Yes. Keep things in perspective. STAR TREK is a means to an end. It's not an end in itself. I think, if we're going to lionize anything about STAR TREK, it could be that it's a springboard to a better future. And not that we have achieved the quintessential science fiction programming, or that STAR TREK and its actors are to be deified in any way. We're just the means to express a one world society in which we are able to work together and love each other, without losing our cultural identities, or racial identities, or religious identities. I think that is the Utopia we all should reach for. "Utopia" is an environment where we can maintain who we are, and have great pride in who we are, and still find a way to work together. (Hawk, 1993)

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