George Takei Is Still Guiding the Ship

George Takei Is Still Guiding the Ship

By MICHAEL SCHULMAN
JUNE 13, 2014


The actor George Takei, far left, with his husband, Brad Takei, in their Manhattan apartment. Credit Steven Brahms for The New York Times


George Takei sat in a V.I.P. room at the Waldorf-Astoria as a young makeup artist named Eryk Datura dabbed foundation on his brow.

“Are you a native of this city?” the 77-year-old actor asked him, in the booming basso profundo that helped make him famous, beginning with his role as the galactic helmsman Hikaru Sulu on “Star Trek.”

“I’m from Nashville,” Mr. Datura said.

Mr. Takei perked up. “Do you know the state senator from eastern Tennessee named Stacey Campfield?” he asked. “He tried to get a law passed forbidding teachers from using the word ‘gay’ in schools.”

He cracked a satisfied grin and continued: “On YouTube I said, ‘Well, if it’s going to be illegal to use the word “gay,” then you can simply substitute it with the word “Takei,” which rhymes with “gay.” And you can march in a Takei Pride Parade.’ ”

That brand of winking online activism is why Mr. Takei was honored last month by Glaad, the gay rights advocacy group. Since coming out as gay in 2005 at the age of 68, Mr. Takei has used his bawdy social-media persona to build a following far beyond Trekkies. To his seven million Facebook fans and million or so Twitter followers, he supplies an endless stream of viral diversions (like a photo of a road sign saying “Elevated Man Holes”), often accompanied by his pseudoscandalized catchphrase, “Oh myyy.”

Like Betty White, Mr. Takei has used naughty-oldster humor to fuel a late-career surge. But his ribaldry is often in the service of social causes, whether gay rights or Japanese-American visibility. In 2007, after the former basketball player Tim Hardaway said, “I hate gay people,” Mr. Takei responded with a mock public service announcement on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” telling Mr. Hardaway, “Let it be known: One day, when you least expect it, I will have sex with you.”

He concluded, with a cackle, “I love sweaty basketball players.”

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