Star Trek star George Takei comes out

Veteran actor George Takei, best known as Mr. Sulu on the classic TV series Star Trek, comes out of the closet in the new issue of Frontiers. Or rather, as he tells editor Alexander Cho, “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. Brad’s (Altman) my partner, we’ve been together for 18 years. So, I’ve been ‘open,’ but I have not talked to the press. In that sense, maybe that’s another opening of the corridor there.”

On being a child in the United States during the World War II: “You know, I grew up in two American internment camps, and at that time I was very young. My memories of camp — I was four years old to eight years old — they’re fond memories…. Yes, I remember the barbed wire and the guard towers and the machine guns, but they became part of my normal landscape…. But when we came out of camp, that’s when I first realized that being in camp, that being Japanese-American, was something shameful. That camp was sort of like jail, and bad people go to jail. So, when you’re eight, nine… And there’s a sense of some shame being Japanese-American.”

In the interview, the 68-year-old actor also discusses his siblings’ inability to accept his homosexuality, and the upcoming Los Angeles production of Equus in which he stars.

Source: The Advocate