RODDENBERRY, Gene

(1921-1991)

   US tv scriptwriter, producer, director and creator of STAR TREK. GR began writing in the late 1940s while working as a pilot for a commercial airline. In 1953 he sold his first tv script and in 1956 his first that was sf, a genre in which he had not previously been particularly interested. In 1954 he became a full-time tv writer. In 1963 he created and produced a series of his own - The Lieutenant - for MGM, and in the same year conceived Star Trek but had difficulty launching the project; and it was not to be until 1966 that the show reached tv screens. Star Trek was not a great success in terms of ratings and was ended in1968, but over the next decade, partly as a consequence of reruns, the show built up a huge following.After Star Trek, GR spent much time trying to launch other tv sf series, but without success, although 4 pilot episodes appeared as made-for-tv films: GENESIS II (1973), PLANET EARTH (1974), The QUESTOR TAPES (1974) and STRANGE NEW WORLD (1975). In 1977,turning from sf to horror, GR wroteSpectre, a tv pilot, directed by Clive Donner, along the lines of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, with Robert Culp asa demonologist detective; this too failed to be sold as a series.Throughout the 1970s a Star Trek revival was continually announced, either as a tv series or as a theatrical film, but it was only after the success of STAR WARS (1977) that such a project became feasible. In 1979 GR finally produced STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE, dir Robert WISE, withthe cast of the old series stranded among state-of-the-art special effects. The announced budget was much inflated by many years of development costs having almost nothing to do with the final film; without such irrelevant factors the film would have been the most successful of the ST movies. As it was, on the official figures, though commercially successful, it was by no means the blockbuster that Paramount had envisioned, and GR took a less personal interest in the ongoing sequels, of which there have been 5 to date, commencing with STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982); these eschew the daring but tedious mysticalapproach of Wise's film and revert to the cosy soap-and-sentiment basics of the original series. In 1987 GR cowrote and produced Encounter at Farpoint, the pilot episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION(1987-current), a sequel tv series set 80 years on in the Star Trek universe; he continued to serve as overall creative guide, but not on a day-to-day basis, and died shortly before his basic concept was spun off into a third tv series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (begun 1992).The Making of Star Trek (1968) by Stephen E. Whitfield and GR was actually written by Whitfield and The Making of Star Trek The Motion Picture (1980) by SusanSackett and GR was written by Sackett. GR was also credited as author of the novelization Star Trek: The Motion Picture * (1979).

   JB/KN/PN

   About the author: Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry (1994) by David ALEXANDER; Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and theMan Behind"Star Trek"(1994) by Joel Engel.