“Because something or someone looks or acts differently from us does not necessarily mean that it is ugly or bad” – Gene Roddenberry.

Gene Roddenberry was the genius behind the groundbreaking television series Star Trek.  But there was so much more to Roddenberry’s life – he was a military aviator, worked for the police department, and was a scriptwriter.

Gene Roddenberry was born on 19 August 1921

in his family home in the west Texas town of El Paso.  His family would move to Los Angeles two

years later when his father became a police officer there.   He loved reading pulp fiction as a child with

titles such as John Carter of Mars and Tarzan having a great influence on him

and his future Hollywood writing career.

Though he would study police science at Los

Angeles City College, which incidentally was where he met and started dating

Eileen-Anita Rexroat his passion was for flying. He joined the Army Air Force in

1941 shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and he flew 89 combat

missions during World War II, mostly in the four-engine bomber, the B-17 Flying

Fortress for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had been

the pilot of a B-17 that overshot the runway in 1943 and crashed into trees, killing

two of the crew, but he was absolved of all blame. He was also involved in a crash

as a passenger and subsequently flew all over the world helping with air crash

investigations.

In 1942, Gene Roddenberry and Eileen were

married and they would go on to have two children together, Darleen Anita and

Dawn Allison.

After the war, Roddenberry would go on to fly commercial aircraft for Pan Am on some of their long-haul routes.  He had another flying accident as the flight officer, and despite having two broken ribs himself, he was able to help some of the passengers escape the wreckage. 

Upon retiring from flying in 1948, Gene Roddenberry joined the LA Police Department and also started to take an interest in writing.  He first worked in the police traffic department and was able to use his writing skills in the newspaper division that would later become the Public Information Division.  He also became the speechwriter for the Chief of Police. Around this time, he also started to show an interest in writing for the new media of television.

Roddenberry served as the technical advisor

on a television program called Mr. District Attorney under the pen name Robert

Wesley. He also wrote scripts for some major series like Have Gun, Will Travel,

Dragnet, and Highway Patrol. However, it became difficult to balance both

careers, so in 1956 he resigned from the LAPD in order to focus full-time on his

television writing career.

In 1964 Gene Roddenberry created the series

Star Trek and worked hard to get it picked up for TV. It debuted in September

1966 on NBC and though the original series only ran for three seasons, it went

on to spawn six spinoffs in later decades along with a dozen feature films.

Star Trek struggled constantly during its initial run with the threat of cancelation always hanging over its head. It was saved by the fans who created fan clubs and kept it going for 79 episodes. This initial run became known as Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short.   Star Trek was revolutionary in a number of ways. For example, it boasted the most diverse cast on television at the time and it was also set in a universe that showed that people could get along with each other, quite an optimistic outlook which was a stark contrast to the evening ...