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The Origin

In the beginning there was Gene Roddenberry...

The story of Star Trek rightly begins August 19, 1921, in El Paso Texas, where Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born. A sickly but imaginative child, Roddenberry read voraciously. As he grew older, both his health and imagination began to improve. Bitten early by the writing bug, he served as a B-17 bomber pilot during World War II, using his off-duty moments to pen aviation magazine articles and poetry, some of which he sold to the New York Times.

After the war, Roddenberry became an international airline pilot for Pan American World Airways, but the urge to write never left him. He continued to produce magazine articles and dreamt of going to Hollywood to launch a career as a writer.

In 1949, he gave into his dream, he quit his pilot's job and moved to Los Angeles, hoping to write for the new medium of television. In the meantime, he paid the rent by joining the Los Angeles Police Department. Even there his talent for stringing words together didn' t go unnoticed, and he began writing speeches for the Chief of Police William Parker.

Eventually, Roddenberry procured an agent and began selling scripts to TV series. Soon after, when he realized that he was earning far more as a script writer than a cop, he turned in his badge and began writing full-time. A number of scripts sales followed; "Dragnet", "Playhouse 90", "Naked City", and "Doctor Killdare", among others. In due time, he landed a job as a story editor on "Have Gun, Will Travel"; his script for that series episode "Helen of Abajnian" won him the prestigious Writer's Guild Award.

In 1959, he turned to producing, for as he said, "it became apparent to me that if you want the film to reflect accurately what you felt when you wrote the script, then you have to produce it too." His first few pilots failed to sell (one of them, "333 Montgomery", starred DeForrest Kelly). Finally, he sold the Marine Corps drama "The Lieutenant", which featured Gary Lockwood and Robert Vaughn. (Actors Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Keonig, Grace Lee Whitney, and Majel Barret all guest-starred on the series.)

"The Lieutenant" only lasted one season, and it was gearing down, Roddenberry's thoughts turned to his next series and the future. At that time, he was greatly influenced by a recent nonfiction book, Arthur C. Clarke's "Profiles of the Future", which discussed "space drive", "warped space" and "instantaneous transportation", Inspired, Roddenberry decided that his next series would be a science fiction show. "Now", he said, "perhaps I'd be able to talk about love, war, nature, God, sex.....and maybe the TV censors would let it pass because it all seemed so make-believe."
Thus Star Trek was born. Roddenberry's original concept was that of a "wagon train to the stars", and included the Starship Yorktown plus significantly different characters from the ones we know today: ship's captain Robert April, the logical female second-in-command Number One (Majel Barret), navigator Jose Tyler, captain's yeoman J. M. Colt, and elderly Dr. Phillip Boyce. And as for Mr. Spock....

According to Samuel A. Peebles, writer of the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Spock" was (originally) a red-skinned creature with fiery ears, who had a plate in the middle of his stomach. He didn't eat or drink, but he fed upon any form of energy that struck his plate in his stomach. I told Gene that I thought this very effectively destroyed him as an interesting character because he was no longer human and that he should be at least half-human and have the problems of both sides."

Unfortunately, MGM, who backed "The Lieutenant" didn't think science fiction would appeal to 1960's viewers. Roddenberry shopped his series concept to several studios, but all rejected it as too risky and expensive, all except Desilu, which was actively seeking new projects and signed Roddenberry a three year deal.

With Desilu's backing, Roddenberry started pitching his new show to the networks. He began with CBS executives, who, after pumping him for information about his new science-fiction idea, informed him they already had a more "adult" science-fiction series in the works, named "Lost In Space". But NBC was interested, and commissioned a pilot.

The captain's name had been changed from Robert April to Christopher Pike (and the ship's name from the Yorktown to the Enterprise), but otherwise the cast of characters adhered to the original format. Roddenberry approached Lloyd Bridges of "Sea Hunt" fame to play the lead, but when Bridges turned him down, Jeffrey Hunter was chosen to play Captain Pike. Veteran character actor John Hoyt was cast as Dr. Phillip Boyce, and Majel Barret as the frosty, logical Number One.

Leonard Nimoy, of course, had always been Roddenberry's first choice for the part of Spock; he had wanted to cast the actor as a alien ever since he saw Nimoy perform in "The Lieutenant". Had Nimoy refused the role, Roddenberry said, "I probably would've asked Martin Landau. I'd worked with him. I had him in mind as a possibility."

When Nimoy was called to meet with Roddenberry, the actor assumed he would have to compete against others for a role in the new show, and was surprised to learn otherwise. Say's Nimoy, "Gene showed me around the studio. He showed me the sets that were being developed and the wardrobe that was being designed. I began to realize that he was selling me on the idea of being in the series, unusual for an actor. I figured all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I might end up with a good job here."

One thing Roddenberry wanted in his pilot was a green dancing woman, so Majel Barret was used to screen-test the green makeup that would later be worn by the female guest star. She recalls, "The makeup they put on me was green as green can be, but they kept sending out the rushes and we would get it back the next day, and there I was just as pink and rosy as could possibly be. So they decided there was not enough green in it, I got greener and greener. Now, this stuff is hard to get off. I rubbed my face raw. This went on for three days, until they finally called the lab and said, "What do we have to do to get this woman's face green?" And they said, "Green? You wanted it green? We thought it was a mistake, so we've been color correcting!"

Susan Oliver was finally cast as Vina, the female guest star, and the pilot was shot in nine days at a cost of $630,000, which at the time made it the most expensive pilot ever produced. Despite the cost, NBC rejected the pilot, because it was "too cerebral" and lacking in action and adventure. They also objected to a female second-in-command, and to the guy with the pointed ears, saying that his demonic appearance might offend religious groups. However, they liked "The Cage" enough to do an unheard of thing, ask for a second pilot.

Roddenberry brought in veteran writer Sam Peebles to provide the action-filled script for "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and started to work on revamping the series. Jeffry Hunter chose not to continue in the role of Pike, so Canadian-born William Shatner was eventually cast in his place, and the captain was given a new name: James T. Kirk.

Shatner had appeared in film, television, and on stage. Two years earlier, he had played another heroic lead in an unsold pilot, "Alexander the Great", which he playfully describes as "Combat in drag". But his role as Alexander definitely influenced his portrayal of Kirk. In contrast to Jeffrey Hunter brooding, somber performance as Pike, Shatner brought a warmth and likeabiltity to the role as Enterprise captain. (In an interesting coincidence, Shatner had worked with Nimoy before, in a 1964 "Man from U.N.C.L.E." episode.) His initial impression, when Roddenberry showed him "The Cage", was that "it was a very imaginative and vital idea..... Then a script was written (for the second pilot), and I made some suggestions that Gene kindly said sometime after had some import....My general impressions were that it was a wonderful, vital idea that needed little change."

Despite NBC's request, Roddenberry was determined to keep the alien, Spock. He yielded to the request to drop the character Number One, because as he said, "It seemed to me that we were having so many arguments at this time that I couldn't save both of them, and so I decided to save the alien character. And it was time that we gave Mr. Spock the woman's logical unemotional qualities and kept him on the show. I then married the woman, but obviously, I could not have legally done it the other way round."

Spock was the only character from the first pilot to appear in the second. John Hoyt, who had played Dr. Phillip Boyce, was involved in other projects, so actor Paul Fix was cast as Dr. Piper. Guest stars Sally Kellerman and Gary Lockwood were cast as psychiatrist Elizabeth Dehener and crewman Gary Mitchell.

Despite network pressure to have an all-white crew, Roddenberry was determined that minorities should be represented on the Enterprise. Black actor Lloyd Haynes was cast as Lieutenant Alden, and George Takei as the Japanese-Filipino officer, Sulu. According to Takei, "I think it was Gene's vision to have the makeup of the crew reflect the pluralism of this global society. I think Gene has often said, "The Starship Enterprise was the Starship Earth in mirocosm." Takei came away from his first meeting with Roddenberry �convinced that he wouldn't get the role. He explains, "Roddenberry came out from behind his desk, and ushered me to a corner of his office where there was a coffee table and couch setting, so it was a relaxed, comfortable setting rather than a formal test with a supplicant chair. It was really a very unusual interview, one on one, and we talked about everything but my career. Now, generally they ask you about some of the other things you've done, the other directors you've worked with....Apparently, Gene had done his homework and knew about that. So we just generally 'shot the breeze'....Frankly, I walked out of the interview thinking I wasn't right for the part, and thats why he was carrying on the conversation in the way that he was."

It was also decided that the ship needed a chief engineer, the actor James Doohan was called in to read for the role. Roddenberry recalled, "Jimmy Doohan I had never worked with, but a director brought him in and asked him if he could do a Scottish accent and he did like an hour and a half of accents and had us falling on the floor laughing, so there was never any doubt that he had the job." Roddenberry asked Doohan which accent he preferred, and Doohan replied, "He's going to be a engineer so he should be a Scotsman." Doohan has always been fascinated by science and ships. Said he, The writers of Star Trek found out that I read technical journals. And that's how they put that into Scotty's character. The character is 99% James Doohan and 1% accent."

With the cast in place, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was shot in July of 1965 at a cost of $330,000. Filming took eight days, post-production several months. Finally in February1966, word came from the network....Star Trek would make its television debut in December.

There were changes after the second pilot as well. Roddenberry had always wanted to cast DeForest Kelly as the doctor, but Kelly had been busy doing other projects (including pilots for Gene). He remembers, "Gene had never discussed Star Trek with me at the time except in the commissary one day before he started (production of the first pilot), and he said, 'De, I've got two properties.....I think he said for CBS at the time, and that one of them was a science fiction thing called Star Trek, and the other was "High Noon". Of course, I had been in a great number of westerns. He said, 'Now, in the science fiction story there's a very interesting character....He's an alien and he has pointed ears, and we're going to do him green.' I said I'll wait for "High Noon"." In addition. NBC felt the audiences wouldn't buy Kelly in a "good guy" role, as he had played the role of villain too often (such as the despicable Amos True in "Gunfight at Comanche Creek", who coolly silences a barking dog by shooting it....A far cry from that lovable Dr. McCoy) But Roddenberry convinced the network otherwise and, as soon as the actor became available, cast him as Leonard "Bones" McCoy. Interestingly, Kelly had worked with Leonard Nimoy before, in an episode of "The Virginian." He recalls laughingly, (Nimoy) later reminded me of that...I played a drunken doctor and I let him die."

Roddenberry also cast Nichelle Nichols in the role of Lieutenant Uhura ("uhuru" means "freedom" in Swahili). Nichols's first dramatic episode had come three years earlier, when she had appeared in an episode of "The Lieutenant". She was singing in England when her agent contacted her about the possibility of a role in a new science fiction series. She was enjoying her stay in Europe and refused at first to return to the States. But her agent persisted, and finally convinced her by paying for a plane ticket home. When Nichols went to read for Star Trek, there was no part in the script for her, so she read for the part of Mr. Spock. "We did a nice long reading, a scene that was several pages long." she recalls, "and when I finished, one of the guys said ' Call down to personnel to see if Leonard Nimoy has signed his contract yet!"

Grace Lee Whitney, who had appeared in the films "Top Banana" and "Some Like It Hot", was hired to replace Andrea Dromm as the captain's yeoman. (Whitney had also appeared in Roddenberry's "Police Story" pilot with DeForest Kelly.)

Majel barett returned to the show in a different guise, that of nurse Christine Chapel. NBC executives had not liked barett's portrayal of Number One, so barett came up with a plan. She bleached her hair blonde and went into Roddenberry's office. " I sat there talking to his secretary, Penny, and Gene walked in. He looked at me and Penny, said, 'Good Morning,' and walked in the door.....I kept talking to Penny, and pretty soon Gene came out again, put some papers on Penny's desk, sort of smiled at me, turned around, and walked back into his office. Then the double take happened. He opened the door and said, 'Majel?' And I said, ' By God, if I could fool you, I can fool NBC.'"

With the characters in place, Star Trek went into series production, at a cost to NBC of $180,000 per episode. By August of 1966, Roddenberry had settled into the role of executive producer, with Gene L. Coon as producer and Robert Justman as associate producer.

In September of 1966, Roddenberry decided to garner a little advance publicity by showing the pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to attendees of the world Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland. Understandably nervous about audience reaction as his show began, Roddenberry snapped up at a "rather loud" gentleman to be quiet. And Issac Asimov said, "Yes, you're perfectly right. We will tone it down." And someone said, "You're dead, you just insulted Issac Asimov." As it turned out, Asimov took no offense, in fact, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the show who often corresponded with Roddenberry. The audience's reaction? A standing ovation.

And on September 8, 1966, at 8:30 P.M. EST, Star Trek Made it's television debut.....

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before...

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