Birthday: “I’ve sometimes imagined that if sin had a flavor, it might very well be bacon. It even tastes smoky, as if it emerged piping hot out of the fiery pans of hell.”

George Hosato Takei (1937-  )

Author, actor, activist

Born in Los Angeles to Japanese immigrant parents, George Takei was given his English name by his father- an Anglophile- in honor the coronation of King George VI.  At the age of five, he and his parents were ousted from their home and moved, successively, to a converted stable at the Santa Ana Racetrack, then to internment camps in Arkansas and Tule Lake, California, under President Roosevelt’s roundup order.

Released at the end of World War II, the Takeis returned to LA, where George was his high school’s student body president before studying architecture at UC Berkeley. He left school to try acting, getting bit parts here and there and doing voiceovers for Japanese monster films’ American releases. He got a BA (1960) and an MA (1964) in theater at UCLA as his career began to prosper; he appeared in credited roles, including Cary Grant’s last film, Walk, Don’t Run.

Takei’s break came in 1965, when he was cast in the television series Star Trek. Contractual obligations meant he was only able to appear in half the first season; Walter Koenig took the rest as Chekov, the helmsman. After Takei’s return, they were given the same dressing room and shared one script. Though the series only lasted through 1969, it put Takei on the acting map, and a decade later he returned to his Star Trek in the first of the big-budget film adaptations, now thirteen in number.

He found steady work in every medium, and has 34 films, 63 TV shows, 14 video game characters, and ten plays to his credit. After a 1994 appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, he developed a new cult following of such fervor that, since 2006, he has done regular appearances as a guest announcer on the show.

Parallel to Takei’s long career as an actor is one as an activist. He was an alternate delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention,and a candidate for the LA City Council and California Assembly. A longtime member of the LA Transit Authority, he broke a tie vote to clear the way for construction of the city’s subway system. Since coming out in 2005, he has been a prominent spokesman for LGBT issues and organizations; he married his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, in 2008. Their best man- and woman- was Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols from the Star Trek cast.

Takei has been honored with a Hollywood Star; decoration by the Japanese nation for improvement of Japan-American relations, and an asteroid, 7307 Takei. He is the author of four books: Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe, a 1979 scifi novel with Robert Asprin; and three memoirs. Widely considered one of Hollywood’s great wits, he has 9.7 million followers on Facebook.