George Hosato Takei Altman (born April 20, 1937) is an American actor, best known for his role in the TV series Star Trek, in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise and later captain of the USS Excelsior. Most recently, he played the father of Hiro Nakamura, Kaito Nakamura, on the NBC television show Heroes. Takei is also known for his baritone voice, and has been the announcer for The Howard Stern Show since January 9, 2006 when the show moved to SIRIUS XM Radio. In 2008, Takei came third place in the eighth series of the British reality series I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!.

Early life

Takei was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Fumiko Emily (née Nakamura) and Takekuma Norman Takei, who worked in real estate. His father was an Anglophile, and named him George after King George VI of the United Kingdom, whose coronation took place in 1937.

In 1942, the Takei family was sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center for internment in Arkansas. The family was later transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. Despite this experience, the family developed a renewed dedication and remained involved in the American democratic process. He and his family returned to Los Angeles at the end of World War II. He attended Mount Vernon Junior High School, where he served as student body president, and Los Angeles High School. He enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley where he studied architecture. Later he attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received a bachelor of arts in theater in 1960 and a master of arts in theater in 1964. He attended the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-Upon-Avon in England, and Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. In Hollywood, he studied acting at the Desilu Workshop. Takei is fluent in English, Japanese, and Spanish.

Career

Takei began his career in Hollywood in the late 1950s, at a time when Asian faces were rarely seen on television and movie screens. His first role was providing voiceover for several characters in the English dub of the Japanese monster film Rodan, followed by an appearance in the Emmy award winning television series Playhouse 90. Takei subsequently appeared alongside such actors as Richard Burton in Ice Palace, Jeffrey Hunter in Hell to Eternity, Alec Guinness in A Majority of One, James Caan in Red Line 7000 and Cary Grant in Walk Don't Run. He played Captain Nim, an ARVN LLDB (Luc Luong Dac Biet- Special Forces) officer alongside John Wayne's character in the 1968 Vietnam War era film, The Green Berets. He starred in The Encounter, a controversial episode of the Emmy Award winning television show The Twilight Zone.

He had an uncredited role in the 1963 film PT-109 as the helmsman who steers the Japanese destroyer over John F. Kennedy's PT-109. He appeared in Walk Don't Run (1966) with Cary Grant and Samantha Eggar, and starred in an episode of Mission: Impossible during that show's first season in 1966. He also appeared in two Jerry Lewis comedies, The Big Mouth and Which Way to the Front?