The remarkable George Takei gets the whole hour. We get an exclusive preview of JANM's new George Takei exhibit, talk with George himself about his life and times and his new role in the Sondheim musical “Pacific Overtures,” hear from "To Be Takei's" director that George is NOT a performer at heart (WTF?!), and hear George and John Rabe sing. Maybe. If there's time.
George Takei, this is your life! His almost 80 years celebrated at the Japanese American National Museum
On the occasion of "New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei," a new exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum that opens Sunday, I had to speak with George Takei himself about his long life and career.
Here's my long interview with George, covering those family photos, the internment, his acting career, his non-flirtation with Raymond Burr, his marriage to Brad, and turning 80 (on April 20).
We also talk at length about his latest gig, as the Reciter in "Pacific Overtures," a Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical from 1976, now directed by John Doyle. Performances begin April 5 at the Classic Stage Company.
Exclusive first look at JANM's 'New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei'
Jeff Yang, a curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in downtown LA, says they backed a couple trucks up to George Takei's house a while back, accepting the donation of his vast personal archive. It's been carefully winnowed to a couple hundred items for an exhibit called "New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei," which opens Sunday and runs through August 20.
Jeff gave me an exclusive tour of the exhibit Wednesday, as the final displays were being assembled, including family photos that show just how American his family was before the internment ...
A touching letter from George's mother, as she tried to regain her citizenship after the internment ...
Rarely seen artifacts from George's film and TV career ...
And even Brad Takei's wedding vows:
For visitors, this is a chance to put all the pieces together that make up this most remarkable and truly American life. Make sure to use the audio player to hear Jeff Yang walk you through the exhibit.
Director Jennifer Kroot on George Takei: He's an activist and an educator at heart
The new exhibit "New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei" opens Sunday at Japanese American National Museum, including a couple hundred items from George's personal archives.
For an outsider's view of George, we chatted with Jennifer Kroot, director of the documentary "To Be Takei." (Her new film is "The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin," which debuts this month at SXSW.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUkA3RvwcWw
Despite George's acknowledged Hollywood ham personality, Kroot says she was never worried about not being able to capture the real George:
He has that personality where he is always happy being filmed. What made us go beyond that was the fact that we also started following his husband Brad. Brad doesn't have that type of training. So everything comes out if Brad is around.
In the spent 3-1/2 years Kroot spent with George for the documentary, Kroot came away with this: George is not, at heart, a performer.
At heart, George is an actor and an educator. Sometimes he does that through comedy a little bit, and sometimes he does that through serious speeches. Like even at home when he lets his hair down, he's always reading and thinking about things... I think that's his mission in life- to educate people. Seeing what his father went through... he doesn't take that lightly. He works hard to get his message out and I think that's his main thing. That's behind everything he does. Even Star Trek. As we know the original Star Trek had social justice issues in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y69Mp1Gi7qM
On George's appearances on Howard Stern after he came out:
I think Howard Stern is responsible for not only normalizing George Takei as a gay man, a gay Asian actor. He also is the person that launched that reignition of George's career when he invited him to be on his show. He'd pranked George for years on and off prior to that so I'm not sure George was dying to do that. But I know he really is grateful for what Howard has done for his career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2vFo5VFjm8
Near the end of "To Be Takei," actor Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Chekov on Star Trek, says he hopes George knows what he's accomplished in his long and unlikely career. Jennifer thinks George knows, but isn't patting himself on the back about it.
He has lived and continues to live a pretty unique life. He has a position where it's very unique - first of all- to be part of Star Trek, and he knows that talent but also luck. He's been able to take his very high profile position as a Star Trek star and really talk about issues that are meaningful to him and are important to a lot of people. I think it's something he does for his parents, especially his Dad. I think that's what he's always looking at 'This is what my dad would want so I'm going to do it for my dad.'
Before 'Get Out,' 'The Twilight Zone' tried racism as a monster and failed
Before George Takei was in Star Trek, he was in another otherworldly series, The Twilight Zone. The episode he's in is called, “The Encounter,” and if you’ve watched a bunch of the Twilight Zone, you might be like, “I never saw an episode with George Takei in it," that’s because the episode only aired once. CBS pulled it from syndication after Asian-American advocacy groups complained it was offensive. Spoiler: the episode ends with Takei’s character jumping out of a window with a Samurai sword and yelling, "BANZAI!"
Hm. The few Asian-American parts on TV and you’re gonna have a dude yell "BANZAI?" That’s a stereotype that’s not even trying to be something else.
Even though the episode was banned from being re-run on TV, it’s on DVD, and currently on Netflix. And it’s worth watching.
I know I’m working backward here, but it’s kind of sad that the episode ends the way it does. Because it has moments where Takei’s character, Arthur, has a real opportunity to be nuanced and multi-dimensional. Sigh.
Here’s the premise: A WWII veteran who we only know as Mr. Fenton played by Neville Brand is cleaning out his attic when he comes upon a Japanese samurai sword he took from a soldier he killed overseas. As you already know, this is Chekhov’s samurai sword. Not Chekov from Star Trek, I'm talking about the dramatic device named after Chekhov the playwright that's shorthand for, "If we see it, we gotta use it." But I digress.
Takei’s character comes upstairs inquiring about some gardening work, and the veteran invites him up for a beer, and immediately we see this veteran dude is a bigot. He calls him, "boy," and says flippantly that he doesn't "look" like an Arthur. And then when Takei's character says his comments aren't appreciated, the veteran chides him for being too sensitive.
Takei's character though, persists in defending himself. "Europeans are always calling the natives 'boy,' and mourning about the 'white man's burden,' well the facts are, I'm a full-grown man and I answer to Arthur." The vet dismisses his anger with an admonishing, "You do this every time a guy offers you a beer?"
And we see the veteran repeatedly try to make amends and “have a beer” with his new friend, but he can’t get out of the way of his own racism. He’s got a bad case of, “You’re one of the good ones,” praising Takei’s character as an individual but in the same breath blaming the Japanese for putting him out of a job instead of putting the blames squarely where it belongs: on his raging alcoholism.
Takei's character initially defends his family by saying his father worked for the Navy, which would have been a point for defying racial and ethnic stereotypes, but then he breaks down and says his father was a traitor that aided in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He lets his anger get the best of him (Japanese people having bad tempers was a common stereotype in WWII), and then kills the vet with a samurai sword before jumping out the window yelling, "BANZAI!"
"The Encounter" came out in 1964, President Johnson was trying to rally support for the Vietnam War. Portraying Asian-Americans as spies and traitors wasn’t the kind of visibility they needed. What advocacy groups of the time were saying was, yes, even though this takes place in "the twilight zone," the audience is in the real world.
The episode shores up as a missed opportunity for exploring race relations in a post-WWII world. As far as having a successfully executed suspense thriller where the Big Bad is racism? The world would have to wait.
Side note, have you seen Get Out yet?
Off-Ramp Recommends: a Smorgasburg on the Westside
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If you have been to Smorgasburg LA then you know it’s the perfect place to Instagram foodie L.A. luxuries. Now imagine how many cool points you’ll get for sharing pictures that not only showcase delicious food but that also have an awesome view of the iconic Santa Monica Pier.
For the first time Smorgasburg LA will be holding an event on the Westside.
Smorgasburg LA is a a weekly market showcasing some of L.A.’s best food and crafts. The event typically features about five acres of shopping, chow, and drinks every Sunday in downtown L.A.. But this Saturday, the event will be popping up for one day only at the Santa Monica Pier.
Current Smorgasburg vendors will visit the pier, including Shrimp Daddy, Amazebowls, Lobsterdamus, Donut Friend, and Cheezus.
Brand new vendors like Chichidango and J/10 Chai Co. will make their debut at this event too. If crafts are more your style, make sure to check out handmade goodies from Baobab Collective, Rx Candles, and Goldenwest Goods.
If you can’t make it to the pier on Saturday, you can always visit Smorgasburg at its regular location and time on Sunday.
The special Saturday Smorgasburg will take place from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. on March 11th at the Santa Monica Pier. Smorgasburg LA happens every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Alameda Produce Market. The event is free, but bring cash for treats. For more information visit the website.
George Takei on how he took his internment camp musical, 'Allegiance,' to Broadway
UPDATE: “Allegiance” will be performed Feb. 21-April 1, 2018, at the Aratani Theater at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in downtown L.A.'s Little Tokyo.
ORIGINAL STORY: In an intimate interview, George Takei tells Off-Ramp host John Rabe about crafting the Japanese-American internment camp history into compelling Broadway musical theater. "Allegiance," with Takei, Lea Salonga and Telly Leung, played at the Longacre Theater.
George Takei and his husband Brad were putting their house in mothballs when I arrived for our interview in August. They'd already been spending a lot of time in New York because of George's recurring role on "The Howard Stern Show," but now, with the Broadway opening of "Allegiance" just a couple months away, they were preparing to move for as long as the musical brings in the crowds.
While Brad went off to deal with the mundane domestic tasks around the move, I sat with George in their living room to talk about turning one of America's most shameful episodes — the internment of some 120,000 loyal Japanese-Americans during World War II — into a musical that could make it on the Broadway stage.
George, you just sent an email to your fans with the subject line: "I've Waited 7 Years to Send You this Email. Seven years!" Inside, you wrote: "Few things are as difficult and complex as taking a show to Broadway. It's both thrilling and terrifying." What was terrifying?
"The terrifying part is, you've poured your passion, your energy, your resources ... you make all that investment in that project, and then you're hoping the seats are going to be filled.That 'what if' is terrifying. But in San Diego, we had a sold-out run and broke their 77-year record. But now we're going to Broadway, and that same fear is there. Will they come? What will the critics say? Because it's life or death."
It took a long time just to get a Broadway theater.
"It took a long time to get a theater.You think there are a lot of Broadway theaters, but there are even more productions that want those chunks of New York real estate. So we thought we'd get in line. But then the other discovery we made is that the theater owners have relationships with grizzled old producers who have brought them a vast fortune with enormous hits, and they can cut in line. They have a track record. And so, 'will we ever get a theater' became a big question. But we have this time now — let's use it creatively, productively."
So, Takei says, the team tweaked the show, removing parts that didn't work didn't advance the story, inserting numbers that worked better and kept the story moving. They doubled down on social media, building and proving demand in the show.
"We have a Shubert theater (the Longacre), and Bob Wankel is head guy there, and I remember pouring my heart out, telling the story of my parents, hoping that touches. And he was understanding, but I understood his problem, too. Everybody is trying to get a theater and he has to make a good business decision and was initially skeptical. An internment camp musical? But music has the power to make an anguished painful situation even more moving, even more powerful. It hits you in the heart."
This is your Broadway debut, right? Are you petrified?
"Yes, yes. I've done a lot of stage work, and I've done a lot of public speaking, but it's Broadway, and I'm a debutante... at 78 years old! And it's the critics, too. The New York Times, Ben Brantley. That's who I'm going to be facing, and so it's both exciting and absolutely filling me with ecstasy, but what makes it ecstatic is the fear."
For much more of our interview with George Takei, listen to the audio by clicking the arrow in the player at the top of the page ... and hear George Takei and John Rabe's duet of "Tiny Bubbles."
Star Trek's George Takei came out ten years ago, and his career — and life — only got better
"You know, it’s not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through. It’s more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen. And then some doors are open and light comes in, and there are skylights and it widens." -- George Takei to Frontiers magazine, October 2005
Star Trek icon George Takei stayed closeted well into his 60s, he says, because he feared for his acting career. He well remembered what happened to Tab Hunter when Confidential magazine outed him.
So when Takei came out as gay in Frontiers magazine in 2005, he was prepared to kiss his career goodbye in exchange for speaking out about an issue he cared deeply about. But what happened next is one of the best second acts in American show business history: his career blossomed and his life expanded in ways he could never have imagined ... from innumerable roles and cameos in movies and tv, to viral videos, to a recurring guest role on Howard Stern, to - this week - his debut on Broadway in "Allegiance," the musical about the Japanese-American internment camps.
Listen to George Takei's Off-Ramp interview on getting "Allegiance" to Broadway
Coming out has brought him respect and fulfillment from unexpected corners, and as he told me in a long interview at his home in Hancock Park, it all started with being himself ... being Takei.