Backround

             Eugene Roddenberry is known as the "Great Bird of th Galaxy" and created a number of television scripts and shows, one you might know of is called Star Trek.
He was born on August 24, 1921 in El Paso Texas but grew up in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Franklin High School and quickly took classes to be a police officer at the L.A. City College. He attended the University of Miami and the University of Southern California but did not finish.

Army and police service

After taking some college courses Roddenberry obtained a pilots lisense and joined the air-force he flew a B-17E named 'Yankee Doodle'
He flew 89 missions and in one the jet crashed during take off due to Mechanical failures. He quit the air-force in 1949. Later to support his family he joined the L.A.P.D.Afterwards, he resigned from the department to focus on his telivision scripts on 1956.

Star trek and Roddenberry

Star Trek premiered on september 8,1966 and was able to run for 3 seasons. Then fewer people were watching the show and Roddenberry even offered to demote himself to a lower position to help save the show by giving it a better timeslot. Then they sold the right of broadcast to different stations.

 

In the beginning of 1975 Paramount allowed Roddenberry to develope a new Star Trek series. It contained most of original cast and its original name was going to be Phase II. The series ended up being the "comeback" show for the new network. Then Star Trek: The Motion Picture which did very well in the box office and was the highest rated Star Trek movie until 1996 with the release of First Contact. The sequel was going to include the crew be involved in the JFK assassination but the idea was rejected and Roddenberry was removed from direct involvement. His role as executive consultant continued for the next four films. Roddenberry was really involved in creating and also producing "Star Trek The Next Generation". But he only had complete control of the first season,the Writers Guild of America strike of 1988 stopped him from taking an important role as production manager in the second season and was forced to give control of the series to someone else. Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country was the very last film that starred the original cast of the Star Trek series and was dedicated to Roddenberry who watched it a few days before he died.

Other Television

Gene Roddenberry also worked on a sexploitation called Pretty Maids All in a Row, a film that was originally a novel. The movie did not do well. Roddenberry did not do well with any other work besides Star Trek.

Personal Life

Gene Roddenberry married his first wife, Eileen Rexroat, in 1942 they had two daughters but Roddenberry later went on to have an affair with Majel Barrett and Nichelle Nichols. 25 years later Gene Roddenberry divorced his first wife and married Majel Barrett in Japan on 8/6/69 and had a son together. As Gene was growing up he saw religion as the reason for wars and human suffering. He thought himself as agnostic and a humanist. In Genes vision of Earths future everyone was atheist and they were better for it.