"If
Man is to survive, he will have learned to take delight in the essential
difference between people and cultures"-Gene
Roddenberry
GENE (EUGENE
WESLEY) RODDENBERRY. Born
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in El Paso, Texas, U.S., 19 August 1921. Educated at
Los Angeles City College; University of Miami; Columbia University; University
of Southern California; honorary D.HL. from Emerson College, 1973; honorary
Doctor of Science from Clarkson College, 1981. Married Majel Leigh Hudec (Majel
Barrett), 1969, children: Darleen, Dawn Alison, Eugene Wesley. Served in U.S.
Army Air Force, World War II. Pilot for Pan American Airways, late 1946-49;
worked for Los Angeles Police Department, 1949-51; television scriptwriter,
1951-62; wrote first science fiction script "The Secret Defense of
117," episode for Chevron Theater, 1952; created and produced The
Lieutenant, 1963; Star Trek, 1966 and Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987.
Recipient: Distinguished Flying Cross; Emmy Award; Hugo Award. Died in Santa
Monica, California, U.S., 24 October 1991.
TELEVISION
SERIES
1952 Chevron
Theatre "The Secret Defense of 117" (writer)
1955-58 Jane Wyman Theater (writer)
1955-59 Highway Patrol (writer)
1956-58 The West Point Story (writer)
1957-63 Have Gun, Will Travel (writer)
1958-63 Naked City
1959-61 Bat Masterson 1959-62 The Detectives
1961-66 Dr. Kildare
1963-64 The Lieutenant (creator and producer)
1966-69 Star Trek (creator and producer)
1973-74 Star Trek (animated show)
1987-91 Star Trek: The Next Generation (executive producer)
MADE-FOR-TELEVISION
MOVIES (producer)
1973 Genesis II (pilot)
1974 Planet Earth (pilot)
1974 The Questor Tapes (pilot)
1975 Strange New World (pilot)
1977 Spectre (directed; pilot)
FILM
Pretty Maids All
In a Row (producer and writer), 1971; Star Trek: The Motion Picture
(producer), 1979; (as executive consultant) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,
1982; Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, 1984; Star Trek IV: The
Voyage Home 1986; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, 1989
PUBLICATIONS
The Making of
"Star Trek" (with Stephen E. Whitfield). New York: Ballantine
Books, 1968.
Star Trek: The
Motion Picture. New York: Pocket Books, 1979.
The Making of
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (with Susan Sackett). New York:
Pocket Books, 1980.
Star Trek: The
First Twenty-Five Years (with Susan Sackett). New York: Pocket Books, 1991.
Gene Roddenberry: The
Last Conversation: A Dialogue with the Creator of Star Trek (with Yvonne
Fern). Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1994.
Gene Roddenberry was
the first television writer to be honored with his own star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame (on 4 September 1985).
Gene Roddenberry had an
optimistic vision of humanity’s future-a future where poverty does not exist,
one where technology is not the great segregator but the great equalizer..
Born in El Paso, Texas to Eugene
Edward Roddenberry and Caroline Glen, Roddenberry spent his boyhood in Los
Angeles, California, where his family had moved so his father could pursue a
career with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Following in his father's
footsteps after high school, Roddenberry took classes in police studies at Los
Angeles City College, and headed that school's Police Club.
In that role, he liaised with the
FBI, thanking them for sending speakers and securing copies of the FBI Code and
publications for club use, and attempted to take fingerprint records of the
college community for the FBI's Civil Identification Division.
He later transferred his academic
interest to aeronautical engineering and qualified for a pilot's license.
He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps in the fall of 1941 and was ordered
into training as a flying cadet when the United States entered World War II.
Emerging from Kelly Field, Texas,
as a Second Lieutenant, Roddenberry was sent to the South Pacific where he
entered combat at Guadalcanal, flying B-17 bombers out of the newly-captured
Japanese airstrip, which became Henderson Field. He flew missions against enemy
strongholds at Bougainville and participated in the Munda invasion. In all, he
took part in approximately 89 missions and sorties. He was decorated with the
Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
While in the South Pacific, he
also began to write. He sold stories to flying magazines, and later poetry to
publications, including The New York Times. Upon his return from combat, he
became a trouble-shooter for the Air Force working out of Washington, D.C.,
investigating the causes of air crashes. At war's end, he joined Pan American
World Airways. During this time, he also studied literature at Columbia
University.
It was on a flight from Calcutta
that his plane lost two engines and caught fire in mid-air, crashing at night in
the Syrian desert. As the senior surviving officer, Roddenberry sent two
Englishmen swimming across the Euphrates River in quest of the source of a light
he had observed just prior to the crash. Meanwhile, he parleyed with nomads who
had come to loot the dead. 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.
Back in the States, Roddenberry
continued flying until he saw television for the first time. Correctly
estimating television's future, he realized that the new medium would need
writers and decided that Hollywood's film studios would soon dominate the new
industry. He acted immediately, left his flying career behind and went to
Hollywood, only to find the television industry still in its infancy, with few
openings for inexperienced writers. At a friend's suggestion, he joined the Los
Angeles Police Department, following in his father's footsteps and gaining
experiences which would be valuable to a writer.
By the time he had become a
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 series, starring Gary Lockwood and Robert Vaughn; it told the
story of a young man learning the lessons of life while in the United States
Marine Corps.
Star Trek followed
(1966-1969). The first of the two pilots was pronounced "too cerebral"
by the network and rejected.
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 brother's
original airplane and Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis."
In addition to the
Smithsonian honors, NASA's first space shuttle was named Enterprise.
After the Star Trek series
ended, Roddenberry produced the motion picture "Pretty Maids All in a
Row," starring Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson and Telly Savalas, and also
made a number of pilots for TV. Among these were Genesis II for CBS
(1973), about an 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. He also co-wrote
and produced "Spectre" (1977), a two-hour horror movie for NBC.
Roddenberry served as a member of
the Writers Guild Executive Council and as a Governor of the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences. He held three honorary doctorate degrees: Doctor
of Humane Letters from Emerson College (1977), Doctor of Literature from Union
College in Los Angeles, and Doctor of Science from Clarkson College in Potsdam,
New York (1981).
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." The series also garnered many of the
prestigious Emmy awards throughout its seven year run. In February 1990, the
March of Dimes honored Roddenberry with the Jack Benny Memorial Award of
lifetime achievement.
On Thursday, October 24, 1991
Gene Roddenberry passed away and a world not so far away mourned the loss of one
of television's foremost pioneers.
In October, 1992, a year after
his death, a canister of Gene’s ashes was sent to Houston to the care and
keeping of astronaut Jim Weatherbee. The ashes were sealed in a slightly larger
machined stainless steel cylinder. Accompanied by a 5" X 7" American
flag the cylinder was carried on board the space shuttle Columbia and released
into space.
Majel
Barrett Roddenberry and Rod Roddenberry
Roddenberry was married twice. He
had two children by his first wife, Eileen Rexroat (to whom he was married 27
years) — Dawn, and the late Darleen. His second marriage was to Majel Barrett,
who played Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi,
and the voice of the computer in all of the Star Trek series and several of the
feature films.
They were married in Japan in a traditional Buddhist-Shinto
ceremony on August 6, 1969. He had one child, Rod Roddenberry, with Barrett.
After his death in 1991 in Santa
Monica, California, Roddenberry's estate allowed the creation of two
long-running television series based upon some of his previously unfilmed story
ideas and concepts. Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda were produced under the
guidance of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. A third Roddenberry storyline was adapted
in 1995 as the short-lived comic book Gene Roddenberry's Lost Universe.
There is an asteroid called 4659
Roddenberry and a crater on Mars that were named in his honor.
On October 4, 2002, the El Paso
Independent School District Planetarium was renamed The Gene Roddenberry
Planetarium. Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr. cut the ribbon at the dedication
ceremony.
For
nearly 33 years, the planetarium went un-named. However, on November 13, 2001,
the EPISD Board of Trustees decided that the name should be "The Gene
Roddenberry Planetarium" to honor the life and vision of the renowned El
Paso native.
In
the photo, EPISD Trustee Sal Mena, Star Trek actors Michael Dorn, Ethan
Phillips, Robert Picardo and Marina Sirtis, and Apollo XII/Gemini 8 Astronaut
Richard Gordon watch as Gene Roddenberry’s son, Eugene Wesley Roddenberry,
cuts the ribbon to the entrance of the Planetarium.
Born
in El Paso on August 19, 1921, Gene Roddenberry's body of work encompassed
numerous highly successful stories, television series, and major motion
pictures.Gene Roddenberry died in 1991. Gene Roddenberry's name was chosen for
many reasons. Chief among them was his legendary optimism in his vision of the
future of mankind. His dream was one of peace among all people, on earth and
beyond, as we all discover the future together. His philosophy has touched the
hearts of millions from all walks of life. His dream is our mission. Thus, The
Gene Roddenberry Planetarium continues to forge ahead in its own star trek, to
reveal the wondrous Universe to all El Pasoans...
Data
compiled from The British Antarctic Study, NASA, Environment Canada,
UNEP, EPA and
other sources as stated and credited Researched by Charles
Welch-Updated dailyThis
Website is a project of the The Ozone Hole Inc. a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit
Organization
