My chat w/George Takei about Howard Stern, Heroes, and being out...

I've met George Takei before. It was last summer at an Outfest event but our time together was so brief. so what a treat it was to have a real gab Saturday nitght at the HRC gala with the man who I first became familiar with not through his role as Capt. Sulu on the original "Star Trek," but through his appearances on Howard Stern's radio show before it switched to Sirius. I told George that I don't have Sirius and he said in his unmistakable voice: 'Well you shoooould. Howard neeeeds you!"
It's been 17 years since the unlikely professional relationship began between Stern and Takei who had never heard of the shock jock when he was booked to appear on his show in 1990.
"I didn't know Howard from Adam," he remembers. "I went to this radio station and as I'm sitting waiting to go on, I tell one of the other guests, 'This conversation is offensive and vulgar.'" Takei was unaware that the show he could hear in the waiting room was Stern's!
"They usher me in and here's this wild-haired guy who says to me, "Anyone with a voice like that has got to have a big dong!"
That was the beginning. Takei was a bit uneasy about Stern but Howard sensed a strange chemistry. He would surprise Takei with on-air calls and created what he called the "Sulu Dance." Eventually Takei was won over enough to begin appearing on the show without being too guarded. Still, he did not come out publicly as a gay man to Stern or any members of the press (he had long been out in his personal life to family and friends) until a few years ago.
"What Howard offers me is access to a while different audience," George says. "If you are going to push for social change, you can't just preach to the choir, you've got to get other people. I've gotten so many emails [from listeners] who said they never thought about gay issues but 'what you say is right.''
Takei felt compelled to be more public after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegar vetoed a same-sex marriage bill in California: "I felt I needed to speak out in an authentic voice." He tells me that he and Brad Altman, his manager and partner of 20 years, would very much love to get married.
Takei is currently a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign "Coming Out Project" and since coming out, he's has become as big a star as he ever was - all over again: "It's been great. If anything, my career has enjoyed a second wind."
That second wind includes a recurring role on the NBC hit series "Heroes" on which he plays the father of Hiro.
"My scenes are all in Japanese," he notes.
Since "Heroes" is a huge hit in its first season and 'Star Trek" did not catch on in a big way [in syndication] until after its cancellation in 1969, Takei says it really is the first time he's been on a hit show!
"'Star Trek' became very popular but our ratings were rock bottom," he says. "So this is great fun."
Also great fun was reprising his role of Sulu for an episode of "Star Trek: New Voyages," a web-based continuation of the original "Star Trek" series. Following his episode, "New Voyages" will produce an episode from an unproduced script that has Capt. Kirk's nephew as a gay man in a relationship with a fellow crew member aboard Starship Enterprise.
Takai thinks series creator Gene Roddenberry would be proud: "He was very enlightened and I know that Gene would be very happy with what is going on now."
I'm very happy for George's career recent resurgence even though he never really gone away, not with the five "Star Trek" movies in the 80s and 90s that followed the original series and all those conventions where he is swarmed by "Trekkies" and that unlikely Howard Stern connection. I love it! And I loved our chat. His partner, Brad, snapped the photo of George and I (right) before we wrapped up our conversation and headed into the dinner.