Boldly George Takei

In the center of George Takei's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is a brass symbol representing the television industry. Though his career is immortalized at 6681 Hollywood Boulevard, there is so much more to George Takei than his landmark TV role. The legacy of the UCLA alumnus' impacts travel far beyond the stage and screen, representing adversity, perseverance, civic engagement, activism and advocacy.

Beginnings

A true Angeleno, George Takei was born and has lived his life in the city of Los Angeles. But his earliest memories are of the harsh conditions he and his family endured at the World War II incarceration camps for people of Japanese ancestry. After three years living behind barbed wire fences and under armed guards at the Rohwer camp in Arkansas and Tule Lake in California, their struggles did not end after they were released from the camps. They had to rebuild their lives. With very little money and few possessions, the Takeis made their way back to the city they lived in before the outbreak of World War II - and to the only neighborhood that would accept them, Skid Row.

Through hard work and determination, the Takei family eventually moved to a small apartment with a dry-cleaning business located in East Los Angeles. Here Takei attended elementary school, learning Spanish from his Mexican American classmates.

One summer he volunteered to work in the strawberry fields in Orange County to help with a farm labor shortage. In an awakening of his activist impulse, and at 14 years of age, Takei's compassion for others showed its beginnings. After discovering the Spanish-speaking laborers were underpaid, Takei astonished the Japanese field supervisors by addressing them in fluent Japanese, boldly threatening to expose them. Immediately the pay shortages were corrected. Some grown adults would have remained silent in a similar situation. A committed advocate, even at such a young age, Takei did not.

Stepping into the limelight

At Los Angeles High School, Takei quietly began thinking about a career in acting. He was a member of the drama club and glee club, activities that nurtured his interest in theater. But, to please his parents, he set aside his theatrical aspirations, was accepted to UC Berkeley and decided to study architecture.

While on summer break, Takei enrolled in a UCLA acting class, and he came across a newspaper ad looking for voice actors fluent in both English and Japanese for dubbing work on the science fiction film titled "Rodan," now a cult classic. He was hired. This was his first professional, paid acting job. Inspired, he wanted to go to New York and study at the famed Actors Studio. However, his parents offered him a deal he could not refuse: They would pay his way - not if he went to New York, but if he stayed home and studied theater at UCLA.

During his time in Westwood, Takei was cast for a part in the acclaimed television anthology "Playhouse 90." His role in a school stage production was noticed by a Warner Brothers casting director, leading to a part alongside famed actor Richard Burton in the film "Ice Palace." A slow but steady stream of roles in film, television and theater followed while Takei, the only Asian student in UCLA's Theater Arts Department, completed his studies and earned a bachelor's degree in 1960 and a master's in 1964. These years at UCLA, he said in his autobiography "To The Stars," were a time of rare opportunities and good challenges blessed by lady luck, supported by hard work.

There came a call from the actor's agent Fred Ishimoto. He had lined up an interview for a part in a new television science fiction drama by writer-producer Gene Roddenberry. Titled "Star Trek," the show about the voyages of a 23rd-century spaceship crew - celebrating the 60th anniversary of its debut this year - envisioned the Starship Enterprise as a metaphor for Earth, with its strength in its diversity. That diversity was reflected in the casting of the crew, with Takei in the role of Lt. Sulu, senior helmsman.

A breakthrough role

Never in a weekly television series had an Asian character been depicted the way Hikaru Sulu was. A member of the leadership team. An astrophysicist with qualities of a classic hero. In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Takei recalled that Asians loved watching Star Trek because Lt. Sulu was a figure they could be proud of and look up to. They saw an Asian character who was not a stereotype, did not speak with an accent, and later commanded his own starship.

"I think my life has changed completely by my association with Star Trek," Takei said in a 1994 interview with producer/director Paul Rosa. With fame, opportunities in public service and business opened up to him. He has run for public office and has served on the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, now known as LA Metro. He is on the board of directors of the Japanese American National Museum. He has remained busy in virtually all forms of media, has fearlessly stepped forward as an activist for causes important to him and, as he demonstrated at age 14, advocated on behalf of others.

It was the defeat of a California Assembly bill to legalize same sex marriage in June 2005 and the California Legislature's marriage equality bill in September 2007 that inspired Takei to publicly come out as gay, speak on behalf of the LGBTQ community and support marriage equality.

In "To The Stars," Takei writes, "As a people, we may have varied histories tracing back to the Mayflower or to slave ships, to split-rail corrals or to barbed wire fences. But, whatever our histories, however tortured and adversarial they must have been, our destinies are bound inextricably together. We have a common future. Our challenge lies not in carrying the weight of our pasts like anchors, but in working in concert to build that common tomorrow."

A message for the future

After 45 feature films, hundreds of television roles, stage appearances, published works including seven books and multiple articles, advocacy work and millions of followers on social media, Takei, in a triumphant homecoming, beamed into the COVID-era UCLA virtual commencement ceremony to deliver the keynote address in 2020.

"Aspire as no others have," Takei said. "Cleanse our planet, revitalize our civilization, discover new challenges, stretch as far as you can, boldly go where no one has gone before."