Although primarily known for playing Hikaru Sulu in the television series _"Star Trek" episode "Flashback". George has run several marathons and was in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Torch Relay. He gained a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame in 1986 and left his signature and hand print in cement at the Chinese Theater in 1991. His 1994 autobiography, "To the Stars", was well-received by more than just Star Trek fans. He remains active as a stage, television and film actor and as an advocate for the interests of Japanese-Americans.
During World War II, Takei lived with his family in several government internment camps for people of Japanese ancestry. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the applicable Executive Order No. 9066, on February 19th 1942. In December 1944, President Roosevelt suspended Executive Order 9066. Incarcerees were released, often to resettlement facilities and temporary housing, and the camps were shut down by 1946.
Attended and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles. His major was Theater Arts and his minor was Latin American Studies. His father said that both of those areas of study meant that he would be supporting George for the rest of his life.
In 1996, he became the first original "Star Trek" series actor to go to a South American convention, in So Paulo, Brazil.
When he met with Gene Roddenberry about a role on "Star Trek" , Roddenberry called him Takei (pronouncing it "Ta-KAI"), which translates from the Japanese as "expensive" or "tall" (his name is actually pronounced "Ta-KAY", which rhymes with "okay"). This is how Roddenberry remembered his name.
Has initially declined to appear in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan , but William Shatner personally called him and persuaded him to star in the film.
Among his first acting jobs was as a voice artist. Although he was only a teenager, he dubbed English dialog for adult characters in Japanese films being released in the United States.
Has initially objected to the scene in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock where the tall Starfleet guard calls him "tiny". When the scene was screened for audiences, the audiences cheered Sulu (Takei) when he defeated the tall guard, and Takei later apologized to writer Harve Bennett for it.
Has stated that his favourite "Star Trek" episode is "Star Trek" {The Naked Time (#1.4)} .
Is a favorite of the Howard Stern audience.
His family was incarcerated at an internment camp in Arkansas when he was 4 to 8 years old. He learned to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while surrounded by guard towers and barbed-wire fences.
Along with Robert Duncan McNeill and Robert Picardo , he is one of only three "Star Trek" regulars to wear all three uniform colours. He wore a blue (medical/science) uniform in the second "Star Trek" pilot, "Star Trek" {Where No Man Has Gone Before } , the gold (command) uniform in every subsequent episode of the series in which he appeared and the red (security) uniform in "Star Trek" {Mirror, Mirror } .
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with Walter Koenig : "Star Trek" , "Diagnosis Murder" and "Futurama" .
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols : "Star Trek" , "Star Trek" and "Futurama" .
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with Grace Lee Whitney : "Star Trek" , "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Diagnosis Murder" .
Has been a jogger for many years, and runs marathons. In the Los Angeles Marathon, his best time, as of 1989, was 3 hours and 40 minutes.
Reprised his role as Hikaru Sulu for the 2006 Internet-only series "Star Trek: New Voyages" , after the suggestion of co-star Walter Koenig.
For the television special "The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next" , George Takei explains how he once rode a Los Angeles plane with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star Patrick Stewart. They talked immediately after recognizing one another, but there were complications during final approach, unknown to either actor until landing. He joked to the pilots that the helmsman of the original Enterprise and captain of the Enterprise-D could have offered assistance.
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter (discovered on April 13, 1994) has been renamed 7307 Takei in his honor.
His character Kaito Nakamuras last name is his mothers maiden name.
His father was an Anglophile, and named him George Takei after King George VI of the United Kingdom, whose coronation took place on May 12, 1937.
Son of Takekuma Norman Takei, who worked in real estate, and his wife Fumiko Emily Nakamura.
He and his partner, Brad Altman , had been together more than 21 years before they were married on September 14, 2008. After the California Supreme Court struck down a ban on same-sex marriage in May, Takei and Altman were among the first gay couples to get a marriage license.
Has been an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University since 1979.
The youngest cast member of the original "Star Trek" series.
Speaks Japanese and Spanish fluently.
Is an avid Anglophile and loves traveling to Britain.
Is named after King George VI of the United Kingdom.
His best man at his wedding was Walter Koenig.
Is a huge fan of Anime.
Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6681 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 30, 1986.
Has played the same character (Hikaru Sulu) on three different series: "Star Trek" , "Star Trek" and "Star Trek: Voyager" .
Has made guest appearances on both "Hawaii Five-O" and "Hawaii Five-0" .
At the University of California, Los Angeles, he and classmate Francis Ford Coppola made a student film together called "Christopher".
Best known by the public (and by many sci-fi fans) for his role as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on the original "Star Trek" series.
(August 2007) Appeared at Nippon2007, the first World Science Fiction Convention to be held in Japan (Yokohama). Along with promoting his own recent projects, he co-hosted the 2007 Hugo Awards.
(November 2008) Has appeared as a contestant on ITVs "Im a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" .
He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by Emperor Akihito in 2004.
He appeared on stage in a two-hander called "Undertow" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
During World War II, Takei lived with his family in several government internment camps for people of Japanese ancestry. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the applicable Executive Order No. 9066, on February 19th 1942. In December 1944, President Roosevelt suspended Executive Order 9066. Incarcerees were released, often to resettlement facilities and temporary housing, and the camps were shut down by 1946.
(2005) The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling,ashamed for being gay. The issue of gay marriage is now a political,issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.
[on the Occupy Wall Street movement] The struggle is not only social,economic and political - it is structural. No matter what side you,are on, it is worth listening to what they have to say.
"Star Trek" (1966) is a show that had a vision about a future,that was positive.
Plays close, movies wrap and television series eventually get cancelled,and we were cancelled in three seasons.
Yes, I remember the barbed wire and the guard towers and the machine,guns, but they became part of my normal landscape. What would be,abnormal in normal times became my normality in camp.
To do theater, you need to block off a hunk of time.
And it seems to me important for a country, for a nation to certainly,know about its glorious achievements but also to know where its ideals,failed, in order to keep that from happening again.
As you know, when "Star Trek" (1966) was canceled after the,second season, it was the activism of the fans that revived it for a,third season.
Every time we had a hot war going on in Asia, it was difficult for Asian,Americans here.
I marched back then - I was in a civil-rights musical, "Fly Blackbird",and we met Martin Luther King.
I spent my boyhood behind the barbed wire fences of American internment,camps and that part of my life is something that I wanted to share with,more people.
Then that did very well at the box office, so before you knew it, we,were in a string of feature motion pictures. Then they announced that,they were going to do some spin-offs of us.
Well, it gives, certainly to my father, who is the one that suffered the,most in our family, an understanding of how the ideals of a country are,only as good as the people who give it flesh and blood.
Well, the whole history of "Star Trek" (1966) is the market,demand.
You know, I grew up in two American internment camps, and at that time,I was very young.
Pioneering is never done in front of cheerleaders urging on a roaring grandstand of popular approval.
We have to remember that Putin was a member of the KGB. He has already demonstrated that kind of macho, dictatorial attitude. Russia has breached their pledge to uphold the Olympic charter. This is a great opportunity for the IOC to say we cannot, given the situation that exists currently, allow the Olympics to take place in Russia.
Humor is a powerful tool, and some of these politicians are so far out and easy to lampoon. They just provide such delicious opportunity.
I do find things funny. When you see life through the eyes of someone with a good sense of humor, which my grandmother did, life is a human comedy.
When I was a very young actor, I cruised around in a pretty cool vehicle called the Starship Enterprise.
Gene Roddenberry continually reminded us that the Star Trek Enterprise was a metaphor for starship Earth. And the strength in this starship came from its diversity, coming together and working in concert as a team. That is the strength of our countries, Canada and the United States. We are nations of diversity.
As my audience grew more diverse, I started interjecting social justice advocacy and commentaries about LGBT equality, and it just kept growing more.
I do think that Japan will be one of the nations that have equality, and that, too, will serve as an example for other Asian nations.
The arc of our history is toward more equality being expanded to more and more people.
My grandmother lived to 104 years old, and part of her success was she woke up every morning to a brand new day. She said every morning is a new gift. Her favorite hobby was collecting birthdays.
Children are amazingly adaptable. What would be grotesquely abnormal became my normality in the prisoner of war camps. It became routine for me to line up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. It became normal for me to go with my father to bathe in a mass shower.
STAR TREK is a show that had a vision about a future that was positive.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, young Japanese-Americans, like all young Americans, rushed to their draft board to volunteer to fight for our country. That act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. We were denied service and categorized as enemy non-alien.
People want to start their day off with a smile or, better yet, a guffaw.
I remembered some people who lived across the street from our home as we were being taken away. When I was a teenager, I had many after-dinner conversations with my father about our internment. He told me that after we were taken away, they came to our house and took everything. We were literally stripped clean. .
