Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov, dies aged 90

The actor Walter Koenig, who played the spirited Russian crewman Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek TV series, has died aged 90, his agent confirmed. The US actor was a mainstay on the show from season two in 1967 until it ended in 1969, later reprising his role as the eager and earnest Chekov, with his Monkees-style mop-top haircut, in the six original cast movies from 1979 through 1991. He also wrote an episode for the show's animated spin-off. In the mid-late 1990s, Koenig portrayed a very different character, the ruthless Psi Corps telepath Alfred Bester, in another sci-fi space series, Babylon 5. Born in Chicago and raised in Manhattan, Koenig was the son of Lithuanian immigrants and studied at the famous Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York, alongside the likes of James Caan, Christopher Lloyd and Dabney Coleman. His big break came as the capable young Chekov, who would joke that everything was invented in Russia.