Anton Yelchin
- Category : 1989-births
- Type : ME
- Profile : 4/6 - Opportunistic / Role Model
- Definition : Single
- Incarnation Cross : RAX Rulership 1
Biography
American film and television actor, known for portraying Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot series, and for several other prominent roles.
He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles and the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis (both 2001). His role as Jacob Clarke in the Steven Spielberg miniseries Taken was significant in furthering his career as a child actor. He later appeared on the television series Huff and starred in the films Terminator Salvation (2009), Charlie Bartlett (2007), Fright Night (2011), Like Crazy (2011) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). He appears in Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and will appear posthumously in Star Trek Beyond (2016).
His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were pair figure skaters who were celebrities as stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for 15 years. His family is Jewish; in the USSR, they were subjected to religious and political oppression. Yelchin had said: "My grandparents suffered in ways I can’t even begin to understand under Stalin." Nationally, Yelchin's parents were the third-ranked pair team; they thus qualified for the 1972 Winter Olympics, but were not permitted to participate by the Soviet authorities (Yelchin had said the reason was unclear: "I don't exactly know what that was – because they were Jewish or because the KGB didn't want them to travel"). Yelchin's family moved to the United States in September 1989, when Anton was six months old, after receiving refugee status from the United States Department of State.
Early in the morning of June 19, 2016, Yelchin was found by friends pinned between his car and a brick pillar outside his home in Studio City, California, in what was described as a "freak accident." Yelchin exited his car while in his driveway, when it rolled back and trapped him against the pillar and a security fence. He was pronounced dead later that day at the age of 27. The Los Angeles County coroner's office identified the cause of death as "blunt traumatic asphyxia," and stated that there were "no obvious suspicious circumstances involved."