Walter Koenig with wife and daughter at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock

Walter Koenig, famed for his role as the villainous telepath Alfred Bester in Babylon 5 and as Star Trek's Pavel Chekov, is dead at 90. A representative confirmed his death this morning.

Koenig was born in Chicago in 1936; the child of Russian Jewish immigrants, he did not pursue acting until after college. He made his screen debut in 1963, appearing in the first two episodes of General Hospital , but did not continue on with the long-running soap opera. Instead, he became a key cast member on Gene Roddenberry's groundbreaking sci-fi adventure series, leaning hard into his character's Russian accent when he was brought on board for Season 2. The presence of a Russian officer on the bridge of the U.S.S.…