George Takei On His New Book "It Rhymes With Takei"

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00:00George, how are you, sir?

00:01I'm doing great in New York City. How are you, Jim?

00:05In the lovely city of Detroit, Michigan. I assume you've been here many times?

00:10Many times. And my nephew, a grandnephew, my nephew's son, was there at the University of

00:17Michigan and just graduated and got his job at GEICO as a tech engineer. So he's very proud.

00:28It rhymes with Takei. This book, to do this, I have to be honest, George, when I saw the concept,

00:35I went, do we need this? And then I started reading it. It creates a conversation. When I

00:41was reading it, it made me think about questions, not only to ask you, but just in general. You must

00:47be aware that you're creating a bigger conversation with this in a good way.

00:51Absolutely. Because most of my adult life was behind invisible barbed wire fences. I grew

01:01up behind iron barbed wire fences, courtesy of the U.S. government, simply because we look

01:08different. Well, I'm of Japanese ancestry. My grandparents came from Japan. But after Pearl

01:17Harbor Harbor, that hysteria that swept over the country made us just like the Pearl Harbor

01:24bombers, we're Americans. We had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, but we were imprisoned. And

01:31then I realized after the imprisonment, after we were released, that I was different in another

01:42way, not in the way that I looked, but the way I felt. I was nine years old. And other boys became

01:54attractive to me, other genders. Bobby had the sweetest smile. Richard, who was an athletic

02:03guy, came from an obviously poor family. His mother didn't buy him new clothes. And he had very

02:09tight, small t-shirts, which stopped at the midriff. Pants were tight. And when he was spent playing

02:16basketball, and he threw the ball up, his whole body was exposed. And that was exciting to me. And I

02:24knew I was different again, but not visibly. It's the way I felt. And you addressed that. And that's so

02:32beautifully done in this. And to deal with the, it's candid without being, I don't know what the

02:40right word is, George. But I just, it made me think about like, how many years we've treated people

02:44differently because of something that it's who they are. And you show that. And I feel bad. I always

02:51feel bad, George, that it took till 2005. I mean, that it took so much of your life to deal with this.

02:56I was a passionate lover of acting, movies and theaters. And I wanted to be an actor. But I knew

03:07that I could not hope ever to be hired as an actor, if it was known that I was gay. And so I put myself

03:17into another kind of imprisonment behind invisible barbed wire fences. And I lived my

03:25entire adult life until 68 years old as a closeted person. But particularly in my casting in Star Trek,

03:36you know, you're working with the same people day in, day out, coffee, urn, and then going into makeup

03:44and costume. And you get to know each other well. And I never came out to them.

03:52Never. Never. But never.

03:55Did you want to? Was there a point where you wanted to tell?

03:57Well, it wasn't a matter of my want. The actors, Hollywood people are sophisticated people.

04:05And they knew who I was. But they didn't talk about it because they knew it could be damaging.

04:15If they talked to me or let it let it out that I was gay, then I would be dropped.

04:22Don't you, George, the irony of it, George, that like you're on a show that was so progressive,

04:27that showed us so many things that we had never seen before in network television.

04:30And here you are having, in some ways, pretend to be something you're not, to be on that show

04:36that was trying so hard to be proactive. The irony is not lost on me. At the time,

04:40you must have been shaking your head going, really? This is what we're doing. Okay.

04:44But they became very good friends. And they were silent on the fact that they knew that I was gay.

04:54But there are episodes in our relationship where they let it be known. In fact, there's one

05:04crazy day and night, we were going to a Star Trek convention, and the storm made it impossible for us to land.

05:14And we missed our connecting flight to West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia. And I had to share a room

05:23with Michelle Nichols. I went to bed with Michelle Nichols.

05:29And so it's an interesting anecdote that I was able to talk about for the first time in the Rhymes with Takehi.

05:40They knew, as a matter of fact, when finally marriage equality became legal in California,

05:46I wanted my dear friends to be a part of my wedding party. So I asked Walter Koenig,

05:53who played Chekhov, to be our best man. And I asked Michelle Nichols to be our matron of honor.

06:02She said, I am not a matron. If Walter can be the best man, why can't I be the best lady?

06:13Not at all with that.

06:14Of course you are. You are our best lady.

06:17But at the same time, I was thinking, the opposite of best man was best woman. Michelle just gave

06:25herself an upgrade to lady.

06:28I know we only have a couple minutes, George, and it's always fun talking to you. And this is a

06:31beautiful book. It rhymes with Takehi. I encourage people as well, when you're looking through it,

06:37the artwork of your family, of your mom and cooking for you, that had to be emotional to see that

06:44artwork come to life, in your mind's eye, and telling the story to these illustrators.

06:50The illustrator, Harmony Becker, is wonderful. She did capture my mother and my father,

06:58each in their unique way. And my father passed earlier, and how Brad, my husband,

07:07related to my mother, and how the reproduction of my mother by Harmony is really so sensitively,

07:18beautifully done.

07:19It's beautiful. And the last thing is, I have a son who's 21 years old, and he goes to college

07:23here in Detroit. And I was telling him, trying to explain Star Trek to him. And he's never watched

07:28an episode. Where would he start?

07:30Where would he start? Well, with the original series.

07:36With the original series.

07:37Yes. And the first season, I think. My favorite episode is from the episode titled Naked Time,

07:47when I had become half naked, took my shirt off, and got my fencing foil, and terrorized the

07:54Enterprise with the point of my foil. That was a fun episode. And I,

08:00and that's illustrated too, in, it rhymes with decay. And she got my pectorals. Great.

08:10George, God bless you for what you're doing. I hope you understand all the people's lives

08:14you've touched over the years, not just with Star Trek, but what you've done,

08:17your conversations with Howard Stern over the years will resonate a hundred years from now.

08:22What you did and the way the two of you have that connection, and to just be able to share this

08:27the way you've done it, it matters. I hope you understand you. You've impacted a lot of people

08:31with this, George.

08:32He's a great, Howard is a great guy. And he's a colleague of mine in fighting for equality for

08:41LGBTQ people. Howard is a true hero.

08:45You're always welcome here in the Motor City. You know that. We would love to have you here.

08:48It rhymes with decay. And it's an amazing book. It's a must read. God bless you. Have a great day.

08:53Okay. Live long and prosper.

08:57Thank you, George.

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