John Meredyth Lucas

John Meredyth Lucas was a director, writer, and producer. He produced the second season of from to . Lucas was born into a Hollywood family, being the son of actor and screenwriter . His parents divorced when he was 8 years old, and two years later director married his mother and adopted John.
Curtiz got Lucas his first job in the film industry, as his personal "translator", interpreting between the director, who spoke broken English with a thick Hungarian accent, and the crew. After working as "dialog director" in four films in the 1940s, Lucas became a screenwriter in 1950, moving to television in 1953. Two years later, he also started directing for television.
Prior to Star Trek, Lucas had been the co-producer of and , two of the most popular television programs of the 1960s. Later, he served as producer, writer and director on many television series, including , for which he received two Emmy Award nominations in 1972 and 1973, and (produced by Harve Bennett).
Lucas also worked as writer and director on , produced by Desilu at the same time as Star Trek. Producer Gene Coon, having a smoke at his office window, often spotted Lucas going to his car, and engaged in small talk with him. After several such accidental conversations, Coon simply asked Lucas if he would like to write an episode for Star Trek. Lucas, a life-long science fiction fan, was thrilled by the offer, resulting in . (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two, p. 178)
Incidentally, Lucas replaced Coon as producer when the latter left the series mid-season 2. Similarly to Coon, Lucas wrote his own scripts, while also doing rewrites on other writers' material during his tenure as line producer. He also served as director on and replaced Ralph Senensky for a half-day in directing , when Senensky left early to observe the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
Lucas was not considered to continue his tenure as the show's producer for the third season, but instead was replaced by Fred Freiberger. However, the producers still assigned him to write and direct episodes for the new season. After his first two such endeavors, though, Paramount executive in charge of production Douglas S. Cramer vetoed his hiring as director for the episodes and , due to Lucas having been behind schedule and over budget while directing . (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Three, p. 239)
Lucas directed the final episode of , starring Roddy McDowall, Mark Lenard and Booth Colman, with cinematography by Jerry Finnerman. He also directed several episodes of Night Gallery, also occasionally photographed by Finnerman.
Lucas died of leukemia in 2002 and was survived by three children, his second wife, Patricia Lucas, and his four stepchildren; his first wife, actress Joan Winfield, died in 1978. His ashes were launched into space on a suborbital flight in 2007.
== Credits ==
;Writer
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;Producer
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;Director
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== Further reading ==
* "John Meredyth Lucas, The Politics of Trek", Edward Gross, , issue 112, November 1986, pp. 32-34
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Category:Writers
Category:Directors
Category:Producers