Rise to Fame
Star Trek gave him the career, but the casting made a point. In 1965, Asian actors on American TV played servants or sidekicks. Sulu was a helmsman on a starship, competent, central, unexoticized. Takei appeared in 51 of 79 original series episodes and spent years lobbying writers for more depth. It paid off with Star Trek VI in 1991, when Sulu finally got his own command. The part made him the most visible Asian-American actor of his generation and also put a ceiling on what Hollywood would offer him afterward.
In the Spotlight
Most actors in their seventies with a single iconic TV role end up at convention circuits signing headshots. He turned Facebook into a second career instead. Starting around 2011, his page, heavy on memes, progressive politics, and a dry wit, built over 10 million followers. The documentary To Be Takei came out in 2014. An allegation of sexual misconduct from 2017 (a single accuser, disputed account, no additional accusers) briefly complicated the activist image but didn't stick. At 88, he's still publishing, with a 2025 graphic memoir about coming out and regular appearances comparing current politics to Japanese American internment.
Side Notes
His childhood was split between converted horse stables at Santa Anita Park and a pair of internment camps in Arkansas and California, where the government held his family from 1942 to around 1946. He's said he had happy memories as a small child, first snow, Christmas dinners, while his parents understood what was being taken from them. That experience became the engine for everything after: the LGBTQ activism, the social media platform, the Broadway musical Allegiance. His 2008 wedding to Brad Altman had Star Trek co-stars Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols as best man and best woman.