Walter Koenig died on Sunday, October 25, at his home in North Hollywood, and he was not alone. A representative told People that the man who sat at Chekov’s navigation console died “of old age at home in North Hollywood,” and that he was “surrounded by his daughter and niece.” TMZ reported that the daughter at his side was Danielle. He had turned 90 just six weeks earlier, on September 14. Our Walter Koenig obituary tells the story of his long voyage through Star Trek, from the 1967 bridge of the Enterprise to the movies and Babylon 5.
This is the other story, the one about the family he went home to. It runs through a sitcom many of our readers watched every week in the 1980s, and it leads to one February afternoon in 2010, when Walter Koenig stood in a Vancouver park and spoke directly to strangers he would never meet.
Who Was Andrew Koenig Before That Day in Vancouver?
If you watched Growing Pains, you knew Walter’s son long before you knew his name. Joshua Andrew Koenig was born in Los Angeles on August 17, 1968, during his father’s run on Star Trek, and from 1985 to 1989 he played Richard “Boner” Stabone, the goofy best friend of Kirk Cameron’s Mike Seaver. Cameron never forgot those years. “I can remember many of the fun times we had on the set of Growing Pains,” he said in a 2010 statement reported by Fox News.
Andrew kept working after Boner left the Seaver house. He turned up on My Two Dads and 21 Jump Street, and in 1993 he even beamed into his father’s world with a role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Behind the camera he edited and directed short films, and he became an activist for the environment and for refugees from Burma. In January 2008 he was arrested at the Rose Parade in Pasadena for protesting China’s support of Burma’s military government, according to CBS News and The Globe and Mail.
The Koenigs were a family that liked to work together. When Walter wrote the science fiction film InAlienable, which premiered online in late 2007, he cast himself as the villain, his wife Judy Levitt as a judge and Andrew in a supporting part. But by 2010, Andrew was fighting something that the people who loved him had been watching for years.
What Happened During Those Two Weeks in February 2010?
Andrew had spent about three years living in Vancouver and loved the city, and in February 2010 he was there visiting friends. He was last seen on February 14, and his parents reported him missing on February 18, CBS News reported. Walter went before reporters in Vancouver to ask for help finding his son, and on February 25 friends and family searching Stanley Park found Andrew there. He was 41.
That same day, Walter and Judy sat down together at the police stables inside the park. “My son took his own life,” Walter said, according to ABC News. “He was obviously in a lot of pain.” His parents said Andrew had struggled with depression for most of his life and had stopped taking his medication. Afterward, Walter wrote on his website that his son had died “after a long battle with depression.”
Judy spoke too, and she wanted people to know who her son had been. “He was much loved,” she told reporters. “He had much to contribute in this world, and we want to leave you with that message.” She and Walter had been married for nearly 45 years by then, and they would have almost 13 more together.
How Did Judy Levitt and Danielle Keep the Family Going?
Walter married actress Judy Levitt on July 11, 1965, and her own career crossed paths with his again and again. Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1939, she worked on Mission: Impossible in the 1960s and later appeared in three Star Trek films, including a turn as a doctor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. On Babylon 5 she played a Psi Cop, on the same show where her husband played the Psi Cop Alfred Bester. Judy died on December 9, 2022, at 83. Their daughter Danielle described her on Instagram as “beautiful, effervescent, kind, goofy and wildly talented,” People reported.
Danielle Koenig followed both parents into show business as a television writer whose credits include Invader ZIM. She is married to comedian Jimmy Pardo, and that is where Andrew’s story found a second home. Andrew was the original video producer of Pardo’s podcast Never Not Funny, and the show still runs an Andrew Koenig Memorial Fund for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Its page remembers him as “a beloved son, brother and uncle,” and adds, “Adding video to the show was his idea!”
Father and daughter stayed close to the end. In 2020 they faced off on the trivia podcast Go Fact Yourself in what the show billed as its “first-ever father-daughter edition.” And it was Danielle who was at Walter’s side this weekend. Still, the moment that says the most about Walter as a father came in that Vancouver park 16 years ago.
What Did Walter Koenig Ask of Every Family Watching?
Walter and Judy asked for privacy that day, but Walter did not stop there. He told reporters he had been “receiving an awful lot of e-mails, hundreds of e-mails from people who say they were depressed,” ABC News reported, and he spoke straight to them. “The only thing I want to say is if you’re one of those people who feel that you can’t handle it anymore,” he said, “if you can learn anything from this it’s that there are people out there who really care. You may not think so and ultimately it may not be enough, but there are people that really, really care.”
“Before you make that final, final decision, check it out again,” he told The Globe and Mail. “Talk to somebody.” The family promised that every message sent to them would be printed and bound into a remembrance book for Andrew, TV Guide reported at the time.
Then Walter turned to the families watching at home, the parents and siblings who might already be worried about someone at their own dinner table. He gave them nine words to carry home, and they are the words he leaves behind now: “Don’t ignore it, don’t rationalize it, extend a hand.”
If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.