page_title: Gene Roddenberry
section_title: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Gene Roddenberry / Career as full-time writer and producer / Early career
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of Leonard Nimoy.
context_page_description: Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and creator of the original Star Trek television series, and its first spin-off The Next Generation. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he also began to write scripts for television.
  As a freelance writer, Roddenberry wrote scripts for Highway Patrol, Have Gun – Will Travel, and other series, before creating and producing his own television series, The Lieutenant. In 1964, Roddenberry created Star Trek, which premiered in 1966 and ran for three seasons before being canceled. He then worked on other projects, including a string of failed television pilots. The syndication of Star Trek led to its growing popularity; this, in turn, resulted in the Star Trek feature films, on which Roddenberry continued to produce and consult.
context_section_description: Roddenberry was promoted to head writer for The West Point Story, and wrote 10 scripts for the first season, about a third of the total episodes. While working for Ziv, in 1956, he pitched a series to CBS set aboard a cruise ship, Hawaii Passage, but they did not buy it, as he wanted to become a producer and have full creative control. He wrote another script for Ziv's series Harbourmaster titled "Coastal Security", and signed a contract with the company to develop a show called Junior Executive with Quinn Martin.  Nothing came of the series.
  He wrote scripts for a number of other series in his early years as a professional writer, including Bat Masterson and Jefferson Drum. Roddenberry's episode of the series Have Gun – Will Travel, "Helen of Abajinian", won the Writer's Guild of America award for Best Teleplay in 1958. He also continued to create series of his own, including a series based on an agent for Lloyd's of London called The Man from Lloyds. He pitched a police-based series called Footbeat to CBS, Hollis Productions, and Screen Gems. It nearly made it into ABC's Sunday-night lineup, but they opted to show only Western series that night.
  Roddenberry was asked to write a series called Riverboat, set in 1860s Mississippi. When he discovered that the producers wanted no black people on the show, he argued so much with them that he lost the job. He also considered moving to England around this time, as Lew Grade wanted Roddenberry to develop series and set up his own production company. Though he did not move, he leveraged the deal to land a contract with Screen Gems that included a guaranteed $100,000, and became a producer for the first time on a summer replacement for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show titled Wrangler.
  Screen Gems backed Roddenberry's first attempt at creating a pilot. His series, The Wild Blue, went to pilot, but was not picked up. The three main characters had names that later appeared in the Star Trek franchise: Philip Pike, Edward Jellicoe, and James T. Irvine. While working at Screen Gems, an actress, new to Hollywood, wrote to him asking for a meeting. They quickly became friends and met every few months; the woman was Majel Leigh Hudec, later known as Majel Barrett. He created a second pilot called 333 Montgomery about a lawyer, played by DeForest Kelley. It was not picked up by the network, but was later rewritten as a new series called Defiance County. His career with Screen Gems ended in late 1961, and shortly afterward, he had issues with his old friend Erle Stanley Gardner. The Perry Mason creator claimed that Defiance County had infringed his character Doug Selby. The two writers fell out via correspondence and stopped contacting one another, though Defiance County never proceeded past the pilot stage.
  In 1961, he agreed to appear in an advertisement for MONY (Mutual of New York), as long as he had final approval. With the money from Screen Gems and other works,  Eileen and he moved to 539 South Beverly Glen, near Beverly Hills. He discussed an idea about a multiethnic crew on an airship travelling the world, based on the film Master of the World (1961), with fellow writer Christopher Knopf at MGM. As the time was not right for science fiction, he began work on The Lieutenant for Arena Productions. This made it to the NBC Saturday night lineup at 7:30 pm, and premiered on September 14, 1963. The show set a new ratings record for the time slot. Roddenberry worked with several cast and crew who would later join him on Star Trek, including: Gene L. Coon, star Gary Lockwood, Joe D'Agosta, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and Majel Barrett.
  The Lieutenant was produced with the co-operation of the Pentagon, which allowed them to film at an actual Marine base. During the production of the series, Roddenberry clashed regularly with the Department of Defense over potential plots. The department withdrew its support after Roddenberry pressed ahead with a plot titled "To Set It Right" in which a white and a black man find a common cause in their roles as Marines. "To Set It Right" was the first tim
caption: Leonard Nimoy first worked with Roddenberry on The Lieutenant.
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