Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek," gave the world a future worth living for. He showed us that space is not just for space battles, but for learning new ideas and ways of thinking. Some would even go as far as to say that, indirectly, Gene Roddenberry has done more for civil rights and the space program than Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
Gene Roddenberry had already led quite an exciting life before he became a writer in Los Angeles. He was born in El Paso, Texas, on August 19, 1921, spent his boyhood in Los Angeles, studied three years of college pre-law and then transferred his academic interest to aeronautical engineering and qualified for a pilot's license. In the fall of 1941, he volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps and was ordered into training as a flying cadet just as World War II began.
Roddenberry finished at Kelly Field, Texas as a Second Lieutenant. He was then sent to the South Pacific where he entered combat at Guadalcanal, flying B-17 bombers out of a newly-captured Japanese airstrip, which later became known as Henderson Field. He flew missions against enemy strongholds at Bougainville and participated in the Munda invasion. In all, he took part in 89 missions. He was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
While stationed in the South Pacific, Gene Roddenberry began to write. He sold his stories to flying magazines, and later sold poetry to publications including The New York Times. When he returned to the United States he became an investigator for the Air Force working out of Washington, D.C. When the war ended he became a pilot for Pan American World Airways. It was during this time that he also studied literature at Columbia University.
It was on a flight from Calcutta that his plane lost two engines and caught fire in flight, crashing at night in the Syrian desert. As the senior surviving officer, Roddenberry sent two men across the Euphrates River in quest of the source of a light he?d noticed just before they crashed. The Englishmen reached a Syrian military outpost, which sent a small plane to investigate. Roddenberry returned with the small plane to the outpost, where he broadcast a message that was relayed to Pan Am, which sent a stretcher plane to the rescue. Roddenberry later received a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his efforts during and after the crash.
When Roddenberry returned to the states he immediately recognized the potential in television. He moved to L.A. and found openings for writers rare, so he joined the Police force so he could get a perspective of LA quite valuable to a writer. By the time he had become Sergeant, Roddenberry was selling scripts to such shows as "Goodyear Theatre," "The Kaiser Aluminum Hour." "Four Star Theater," "Dragnet," "The Jane Wyman Theater" and "Naked City." Established as a writer, he turned in his badge and became a freelancer. Later, he served as head writer for the highly popular series "Have Gun, Will Travel." His episode "Helen of Abiginian" won the Writers Guild Award and was distributed to other writers as a model script for the series. Next, he created and produced "The Lieutenant" TV series, starring Gary Lockwood and Robert Vaughn, the story of a young man learning the lessons of life while in the United States Marine Corps.
On September 8, 1964, Gene Roddenberry wrote the first draft of a story that would evolve into the first pilot for Star Trek. Originally conceived in 1960, Roddenberry pitched the idea to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who declined to produce it. Roddenberry eventually sold it to Desilu Studios and NBC based on his unique vision and a small 16 page outline. NBC gave him $20,000 to develop three stories from the outline, and "The Cage" was the one chosen to be the pilot. It was filmed later that year, over a period of nine days, at a cost of $630,000, making it the most expensive television pilot ever produced to that date.
When the Executives at NBC saw the Star Trek pilot they rejected it. Gene Roddenberry had promised them a "Wagon Train to the stars" an action-adventure-space-shoot-?em-up. Instead what they witnessed was a thought-provoking drama that they quickly dubbed "too cerebral."
But NBC did see the potential in Star Trek and asked for an unprecedented second pilot episode. The network had a few requests, though. The second-in-command, a female (played by Majel Barrett) had to go. No one would ever believe a woman in such an important position, even three centuries from now! And while they were revamping the format, they ordered Roddenberry to "get rid of the guy with the ears!"
The female second-in-command did disappear, and with her, virtually all of the original cast. Ironically, the only character to survive intact from this original pilot was that pointy-eared Vulcan himself - Mr. Spock. Captain Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter, was replaced by Captain Kirk, recast with William Shatner in the starring role. Hunter declined to continue in the series, because, according to Roddenberry, "His wife convinced him that science fiction was beneath him." Roddenberry gave Majel Barrett's second-in-command role to Mr. Spock, and the doctor in "The Cage" was also renamed and recast, as were most secondary roles.
Once on the air, however, "Star Trek" developed a loyal following and has since become the first television series to have an episode preserved in the Smithsonian, where an 11-foot model of the U.S.S. Enterprise is also exhibited on the same floor as the Wright brothers' original airplane and Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis." In addition to the Smithsonian honors, NASA's first space shuttle was named "Enterprise," in response to hundreds of thousands of letters from fans demanding that the shuttle be named after the beloved Starship. It was also then that Gene Roddenberry got the nickname "The Great Bird of The Galaxy."
After the "Star Trek" series ended, Roddenberry produced the motionpicture "Pretty Maids All in a Row," and also made a number of pilots for TV, including "Genesis II" for CBS (1973), about Earth recovering from World War III. Next came "The Questor Tapes" for NBC (1974), the story of an android in search of his creator, then a sequel to "Genesis II" -- "Planet Earth," for ABC.
On September 4, 1986, Gene Roddenberry's fans presented him with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first writer/producer to be so honored. "Star Trek: The Next Generation," in its first year in syndication, was awarded with the 1987 Peabody Award for the "Best of the Best." In February 1990, the March of Dimes honored Roddenberry with the Jack Benny Memorial Award for lifetime achievement.
On Thursday, October 24, 1991, less than a month after viewing the final cut of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Gene Roddenberry passed away and a world not so far away mourned the loss of one of television's foremost pioneers. It seemed almost fitting that he lived just long enough to see the last chapter in the saga that he would always be remembered for. The "Great Bird of The Galaxy" had moved on.
