A favorite of the Howard Stern audience.
Along with Robert Duncan McNeill and Robert Picardo, he is one of only three "Star Trek" regulars to wear all three uniform colours. He wore a blue (medical/science) uniform in the second "Star Trek" (1966) pilot, "Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before (#1.3)" (1966), the gold (command) uniform in every subsequent episode of the series in which he appeared and the red (security) uniform in "Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror (#2.4)" (1967).
Among his first acting jobs was as a voice artist. Although he was only a teenager, he dubbed English dialog for adult characters in Japanese films being released in the United States.
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in his honor.
During World War II, he lived with his family in several government internment camps for people of Japanese descent.
For the 1988 television special, "The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next" (1988), George Takei explains how he once rode an L.A. plane with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) star, Patrick Stewart. They talked immediately after recognizing one another, but there was complications during final approach. Unknown to either actor until landing. He joked to the pilots that the helmsman of the original Enterprise and captain of Enterprise-D could have offered assistance.
Graduate of UCLA. His major was Theater Arts and his minor was Latin American Studies. His father said that both of those areas of study meant that he would be supporting George for the rest of his life.
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with Walter Koenig: "Star Trek" (1966), "Diagnosis Murder" (1993) and "Futurama" (1999).
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with Grace Lee Whitney: "Star Trek" (1966), "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995) and "Diagnosis Murder" (1993).
Has appeared in episodes of three different series with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols: "Star Trek" (1966), "Star Trek" (1973) and "Futurama" (1999).
Has been a jogger for many years, and runs marathons.
Has been an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University since 1979.
Has stated that his favourite "Star Trek" (1966) episode is "Star Trek: The Naked Time (#1.4)" (1966).
He and his partner, Brad Altman, had been together more than 21 years before they were married on September 14, 2008. After the California Supreme Court struck down a ban on same-sex marriage in May, Takei and Altman were among the first gay couples to get a marriage license.
He initially declined to appear in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), but William Shatner personally called him and persuaded him to star in the film.
He initially objected to the scene in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) where the big Starfleet guard calls him "tiny." When the scene was screened for audiences, the audiences cheered Sulu (Takei) when he defeated the big guard, and Takei later apologized to writer Harve Bennett for it.
His character Kaito Nakamura's last name is his mother's maiden name.
His family was incarcerated at an internment camp in Arkansas when he was 4 to 8 years old. He learned to recite The Pledge of Allegiance while surrounded by guard towers and barbed-wire fences.
His father was an Anglophile, and named him George Takei after King George VI of the United Kingdom, whose coronation took place on May 12th, 1937.
In 1996, Takei became the first "Star Trek" (1966) actor to go to a South American convention, in São Paulo, Brazil.