George Takei

Apart from being highly popular with the millennial population, for his portrayal of ‘Sulu’ in the cult series and movie franchise ‘Star Trek,’ he has also been known for his sarcastic and witty social media posts addressing serious problems.

George Takei was born on April 20, 1937, in Los Angeles, into a well-established Japanese family. His father worked in the real-estate sector, and his mother was a homemaker. Soon after his birth, the Second World War erupted and brought immense trouble to the Japanese immigrants living in the US. Japan and the US were at loggerheads in 1942, and this led George’s parents to leave Los Angeles and move to Arkansas.

Growing up, George had a very difficult childhood. In one of his interviews, he mentioned that most Japanese families feared for their lives after the attack on Pearl Harbor and that there was a time when their family had to live in stables, while keeping an eye on everyone around.

He lost a number of family members during the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This caused him to develop an anti-war mindset later in his life, and as mentioned in his autobiography, the hardships he faced in his childhood turned him into a fearless man. He had witnessed death closely, and nothing scared him anymore.

When the war stopped and everything started coming back to normal, the family went back to Los Angeles. Takei continued his studies and joined ‘Mount Vernon Junior High School.’ He later attended the ‘Los Angeles High School.’

He was miles away from the entertainment industry. He aimed to become an architect and started studying architecture at the ‘University of California.’ However, Takei suddenly started developing an interest in cinema. He attained his bachelor’s degree in theater studies and continued with the master’s degree in the same program.

While studying architecture, George had read newspaper advertisement for the requirement of an artist to dub a few characters of a Japanese monster movie, ‘Rodan,’ from Japanese to English. This was in the year 1956. This little stint stirred Takei’s interest in the entertainment world. He dropped out of his architecture program and opted for theater studies.

His voice-over stint also earned him a few smaller roles in the TV series ‘Perry Mason’ and ‘The Twilight Zone.’ Enthused by this early success, Takei tried earning better roles. He made his big-screen acting debut with the 1960 film ‘Hell to Eternity.’

A string of minor roles in bigger projects followed. Thus, Takei appeared in films such as ‘Ice Palace’ and the TV series ‘Mission: Impossible.’ Although such roles did not bring him enough prominence, he got the opportunity to share the screen with some of the biggest names of Hollywood, such as Frank Sinatra.

The early 1960s turned out to be the best phase of his career, as Takei starred in ‘The Twilight Zone,’ one of the most popular TV series of that time. This stint earned him a major role in the upcoming science-fiction series ‘Star Trek.’

In 1965, when Asian actors were not much respected in the industry that was markedly dominated by Americans and Europeans, Takei grabbed the major role of ‘Hikaru Sulu in the ‘Star Trek’ series. This made him a household name in America, and he started getting offers for many big films and TV series.

His political commitments made him stay away from acting for a while. In 1973, he contested for a seat on the ‘Los Angeles City Council’ but lost. Following this, he served as a member of the board of directors of the ‘Southern California Rapid Transit District,’ from 1973 to 1984.

During Bill Clinton’s tenure as the American president, Takei served on the board of the ‘Japan–United States Friendship Commission.’ His service was honored by the Japanese Emperor with the ‘Order of the Rising Sun.’

In a 2005 issue of ‘Frontiers’ magazine, Takei declared he was gay. There were speculations about his sexuality, and his decision to come out of the closet was appreciated by the LGBT community. He has been fighting for LGBT rights ever since and has received several honors for the same.

He has also been quite outspoken about racial discrimination and strongly condemned Donald Trump’s call for a travel ban on Muslims.