Walter Koenig, Star Trek's Pavel Chekhov, has died

A Variety report says that Walter Koenig, known to the world as Star Trek's Russian hothead Pavel Chekhov, has died.

Koenig's big break in show biz came in 1967, when he was cast as Chekhov in the second season of the original Star Trek series. He portrayed the character until the show's cancellation, and then through seven feature films; he had a particularly memorable scene in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, when a Ceti eel burrowed its way into his brain.

The downside of that early-career fame is that Koenig was typecast, and acting roles following the end of the Star Trek series were sparse. He turned to screenwriting through the 1970s; ironically, while the character of Chekhov was not included in the Star Trek animated series that ran for two seasons after the live-action show was cancelled, he wrote the script for an animated series episode called The Infinite Vulcan, making him the first member of the …