Gene Roddenberry

American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969), its sequel spin-off series Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994).

His family moved to Los Angeles in 1923. While growing up, one of three kids of Caroline, a housewife, and Eugene, a police officer, Roddenberry loved listening to radio serials. He attended several colleges, including UCLA without graduating.

Roddenberry flew 89 B-17 combat missions in the Pacific during World War II and received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. After the war he was a commercial pilot for Pan-Am for four years. In 1949, he served as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.

His writing career began in the early '50s when he began contributing scripts to TV series including Dragnet, Naked City and Have Gun, Will Travel The inspiration for Star Trek came when the western series Wagon Train premiered in 1966. Like Wagon Train, Star Trek was about a warm and diverse band of roving comrades. Through the far-out concept of the series Roddenberry felt he could deal with important issues such as sex, religion, and union-management without upsetting the network. He had wanted his wife, Majel Barrett, to play Captain Kirk's second-in-command. When NBC execs balked at a woman character with that much power, the post went to Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Barrett ended up with parts on both the original TV Star Trek and the sequel, Star Trek: The Next Generation. With a dismal original run, showing a lowly 52nd in the ratings, Roddenberry's TV series, Star Trek was saved by letter-writing campaigns from Hollywood writers and later by fans.

In 1985, he became the first TV writer with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was later inducted into both the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.