Most of us know George Takei from his work on the original Star Trek series, but that’s just the tiniest fraction of his entire résumé. Between his acting and voice work, Takei has had an astounding amount of roles, appearing in episodes from over 50 different television series and over 25 separate films throughout his career. He’s served as an announcer for radio, acted in plays, played parts in multiple internet series, done voice work for several games, and appeared in a variety of commercials to boot.
Though the original Star Trek is now highly revered and has a massive cult following, it was underappreciated in its day and cancelled after only three seasons. Takei was still able to stay busy after the show, however… very busy.
He has political career.
Shortly after the cancellation, Takei took a foray into the world of politics as an alternate delegate from California to the Democratic National Convention. The year after, he ran for city council in Los Angeles, but lost by only 1,647 votes. After that, he was appointed to the board of directors of Southern California’s Rapid Transit District, where he served for 11 years.
He's an author.
During his stint on the board of directors, his career as an entertainer continued. It was in this period that he co-wrote his first book, a science-fiction novel called Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe. He’d later go on to write and publish his autobiography, To the Stars.
He's worked on your favorite cartoons.
It was also during this period that his voice work for animation began, with Takei reprising his role as Sulu (though only in voice) for Star Trek: The Animated Series. He’s since appeared in episodes of The Simpsons, Transformers: Animated, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Futurama (as both himself and as Sulu), Archer, Adventure Time, Kim Possible, Batman Beyond, Hey Arnold!, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and others.
Takei has also played none other than George Takei in a surprising number of productions, being credited “as himself” in episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, Psych, Party Down, Futurama, 3rd Rock from the Sun, King of the Nerds, Community, and The Big Bang Theory. He also played himself in the games Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff and Pain and provided voices for the games Skylanders: Giants, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Freelancer, Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet, and seven different Star Trek games.
On top of all of this, he’s appeared in a Star Trek web series as Sulu and became a spokesperson for Rooms to Go. In 2006, Takei became the new announcer for The Howard Stern Show when it moved to Sirius XM radio. Takei still contributes to a week’s worth of shows every few months.
He is an avid philanthropist.
In 2005, he publicly came out in an interview with Frontiers magazine and revealed that he’d been in an 18-year relationship with his partner, Brad Altman, to whom he is now married. His activism became more transparent to the public with that move, but Takei had actually long been involved in LGBTQ organizations far before that and had made no attempts to hide that fact.
Takei amassed a huge following online after joining Facebook in late 2011, quickly becoming popular for his humorous, incisive, and purposeful posts. The popularity of his page--it’s gotten nearly 9 million likes to date--made it the perfect platform for furthering his activist efforts and also served to provide Takei with a new level of popularity and a new generation of fans.
Not surprisingly, Takei’s work as an entertainer and activist has earned him several awards. In 1994, NASA named an asteroid after him (Asteroid 7307 Takei). In 2004, the government of Japan gave Takei an award acknowledging his contributions to US-Japanese relations. In 2012, he was awarded the LGBT Humanist Award from the American Humanist Association. Then in 2014, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation awarded Takei the GLAAD Vito Russo Award, which is given to openly gay media professionals who have made “a significant difference” in promoting LGBTQ equality.
His personality is likely what has made him such an adored and effective activist, as he often uses his sense of humor to help spread his messages. To combat Tennessee's “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibited teachers from using language that alludes to the existence of homosexuality, Takei made a PSA suggesting that his surname could serve as a substitute and encouraged people to support “Takei marriage,” or watch the “Takei Pride Parades.” Today, Takei remains a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, “Coming Out Project.”
Someone as multi-talented as Takei can do almost anything (and has done almost everything), so it’s a safe bet he’ll continue to entertain us as long as he feels so compelled.Few have the amount of commendations that Takei has earned, but then again, few have had such a career. So, this begs the question, what’s Takei got left to do? The answer: whatever he wants to do.
