'Star Trek's' Walter Koenig gets a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star

Walter Koenig finally got his big day in Hollywood. On September 10, the man who made a Russian TV character popular during the end of the Cold War received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ensign Pavel Chekov joined the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise during its second season on Star Trek. The character was young, energetic, proud of his country, and a good match for the rest of the team.

Star Trek lasted three years on NBC before being saddled. It took a decade before it found its way to the theatrical arena, but once it did, six movies were filmed with the original actors, including Koenig, that brought their five year voyage to a satisfying 25-year end in 1991 with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Over the years, all of Koenig's castmasts -- William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei -- received the famous stars embedded in cement in Hollywood, California. Series creator Gene Roddenberry has one, too, but Koenig was never granted the honor, even though his fans had collected the required fee back in 2000.

Now, though, the crowning is complete, and with him to celebrate the occasion were Nimoy, Nichols, and Takei. It was the 2,479th star on Hollywood Boulevard and is close to both Takei's and Roddenberry's.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Koenig stated, "he majority of people who wanted me on the star were the fans -- everyone else had one and wasn’t it about time. I thought it would be such a nice honor, accepted in a perspective that it’s late and not necessarily an accolade for a great body of work that was executed brilliantly as much as it had to do with taking your place in the pop culture. Once I understood that, I felt more comfortable about receiving one. I saw Big Bird out there, and it wasn’t such a stretch that there could be also a star for Walter Koenig."