George Takei
An actor and activist whose public work connects Japanese American history with LGBTQ equality.
George Takei was born in Los Angeles in 1937. At five he was imprisoned with his family in the wartime incarceration camps for Japanese Americans, first in Arkansas and later in California. That experience became central to his understanding of citizenship and civil rights.
As Hikaru Sulu in “Star Trek”, Takei helped bring a prominent Asian American character to television. He joined the production in 1965 and later appeared in six films, building a career across screen and stage.
In 2005 he came out publicly as gay, prompted in part by the political fight over same-sex marriage. He married his longtime partner Brad Altman in 2008. In 2017 a former model accused him of sexual misconduct dating from 1981; Takei denied the allegation.
Takei also helped develop “Allegiance”, a musical inspired by his family’s wartime experiences, which reached Broadway in 2015. His advocacy has connected the fight for LGBTQ equality with the responsibility to remember how a country can deny the rights of its own citizens.