$21 million gift from George and Brad Takei to the Japanese American National Museum

George Takei was five years old when his family was told to leave their home in Los Angeles.

He remembers how scared his parents were and how puzzled he felt. Over the next few years, the Takeis lived at Santa Anita racetrack, then at Rohwer in Arkansas, and finally at Tule Lake in Northern California.

Those years stayed with him for the rest of his life.

More than 80 years later, he and his husband, Brad, have promised to keep those memories in good hands.

The couple has pledged their entire estate, now valued at more than $21 million, to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

The museum will be its sole beneficiary.

JANM announced the gift recently.

The couple’s names will go on the new gallery that holds the museum’s core exhibition, “In the Future We Call Now.”

It fills nearly the entire first floor of the renovated Pavilion in Little Tokyo and will open to the public when the museum reopens on January 23, 2027.

“JANM represents the resilience of humanity through the stories and experiences of Japanese Americans over many generations,” George said.

“We wanted our gift to ensure that for generations to come, the museum will remain a vital and active place for our community to come together to learn, reflect, and be inspired.”

Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and chief executive, called the commitment “monumental.” The gift brings JANM’s Our Promise campaign to $135 million, more than double its original goal.

Counting the pledge, the Takeis have given the museum $22.5 million since 1989.

For George, the museum feels more like family than a cause.

He helped found it in 1985, chaired its board from 2000 to 2004, and still serves as a trustee.

The volunteer center carries his name.

His giving began with a deeply personal gesture.

In 1988, he received a $20,000 check from the federal government, and he signed it straight over to the museum.

Brad has been by his side for almost all of it.

They met in the 1980s through a Los Angeles running club.

George, a lifelong runner who carried the Olympic torch in 1984, wanted to train for his first marathon and asked Brad, one of the club’s fastest runners, for help.

“Before long, we became partners,” George remembers.

Brad, born Brad Altman, was a business journalist then.

He later joined George’s business and became his manager, the steady, practical partner to George’s warmth and showmanship.

In time he took the Takei name because he wanted to share the family’s identity fully.

In 2008 they married at the museum, in a Buddhist ceremony with nearly 200 guests.

Their Star Trek friends Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig stood with them as maid of honor and best man.

A photograph from that day now hangs in the new exhibition.

This year George and Brad celebrate 40 years together, and the place where they married will one day inherit everything they have built.

The two have always enjoyed raising money for the museum.

On ABC’s “Wanna Bet?” George turned $25,000 into $106,150 by betting nearly everything in the final round, and every dollar went to JANM.

A year later, he and Brad won “The Newlywed Game,” and that prize went to the museum too. When George took his family’s story to Broadway in the musical “Allegiance,” he made sure the museum would share in its success.

They have also given the museum something money cannot buy: the story of George’s life.

The George Takei Collection fills more than 175 linear feet with photographs, letters, scripts, awards, and fan art, carefully saved over decades by both men.

Among the treasures are a sculpture his father carved by hand, the walking stick George carried up Mount Fuji and his Olympic torch.

One of the most touching pictures shows him as a little boy with his kindergarten class.

When the museum reopens, visitors will be able to talk with him, in a way.

An interactive StoryFile, built from hours of interviews, lets people ask George questions and hear him answer in his own voice.

“I have to tell this story before there’s no one left to tell it,” he once said.

With this gift, he and Brad have made sure the story will go on being told after them.