19 Little-Known Facts About Gene Roddenberry

Gene Roddenberry, the visionary behind Star Trek (born August 19, 1921, and passed away October 24, 1991), revolutionized pop culture with his groundbreaking sci-fi series. Discover intriguing details about the man who sparked one of the most iconic fandoms in history.

Before his fame, Gene Roddenberry served as a pilot during World War II.

Roddenberry joined the U.S. Army Air Corps on December 18, 1941, just days after the Pearl Harbor attack. He completed 89 missions during the war. After a near-fatal accident, he transitioned to a role as an aircraft accident investigator with the Office of Flying Safety, concluding his military service.

He once faced a life-threatening situation.

After World War II, Roddenberry took a position as a junior pilot with Pan American World Airlines. On one occasion, while off-duty, he was called to assist when the plane he was on experienced engine failure. The aircraft crashed in the Syrian desert, resulting in 14 fatalities and hospitalizing 11 others. Roddenberry escaped with only two broken ribs. In a letter to his parents, he described the incident as fortunate.

Roddenberry served as an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department.

After his military and aviation careers, Roddenberry transitioned to law enforcement, working as a traffic officer for the LAPD. About a year and a half later, he was reassigned to the education and newspaper unit within the Traffic Services Division. According to the biography Star Trek Creator, his responsibilities included drafting press releases, delivering traffic safety lectures, and liaising with local newspaper editors. This role marked his first official writing job.

While employed by the LAPD, Roddenberry simultaneously pursued TV writing. He acted as a liaison between the police department and the creators of Dragnet, even adapting real cases for the show. In late 1953, he sold his first script for the series Mr. District Attorney, using the pseudonym Robert Wesley since he hadn’t obtained approval from the LAPD for his side project.

He authored more episodes for another series than he did for Star Trek.

After leaving the LAPD in June 1956, Roddenberry focused entirely on writing, crafting scripts for police dramas and westerns. He is credited with writing 24 episodes of Have Gun—Will Travel, surpassing the number of episodes he wrote for Star Trek. (According to IMDb, he has writing or story credits for 12 episodes of the original Star Trek series.)

His first TV series featured many actors who would later appear in Star Trek.

Before Star Trek, Roddenberry created and produced The Lieutenant, which aired for one season in 1963–1964. The show had numerous ties to Star Trek: the protagonist, played by Gary Lockwood, shared the middle name Tiberius with Captain James T. Kirk. Additionally, future Star Trek stars like Ricardo Montalbán, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and Majel Barrett appeared in The Lieutenant in various roles.

One of Star Trek’s most iconic species was named after Gene’s time in the police force.

The Klingons, one of the most iconic species in Star Trek, were named after Wilbur Clingan, a probationary sergeant Roddenberry knew during his time in the LAPD’s Hollywood division. Clingan often humorously referred to himself as “the original Klingon.”

Roddenberry was notorious for heavily editing scripts on Star Trek.

If you wrote a script for Star Trek during Roddenberry’s tenure, no matter how skilled you were, it was almost certain he would revise it extensively. Harlan Ellison, who won a Hugo Award for the season 1 episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” famously dedicated his award to “the memory of the script they butchered, and in respect to those parts of it that had the vitality to shine through the evisceration.” Roddenberry and others reworked Ellison’s original script, leaving a lasting mark on the episode.

He was romantically involved with both Majel Barrett and Nichelle Nichols.

Roddenberry was in a relationship with Nichelle Nichols, who later starred in Star Trek, while still married to his first wife, Eileen-Anita Rexroat. At the same time, he was having an affair with Majel Barrett, known as the “First Lady of Star Trek,” whom he eventually married in 1969.

In her memoir, Beyond Uhura, Nichols recounted how Roddenberry took her to Barrett’s home to confess he had been seeing both of them while still married. Unbeknownst to him, Nichols and Barrett had already met during an audition for The Singing Nun. Roddenberry explained, “I couldn’t go on behind either one of your backs. I love you both too much. I didn’t know any other way to bring—to tell—the two women that I love that I’m in love with two women. I don’t know what to do about it.” Nichols chose to end the relationship, writing, “Out of respect for Majel, who was deeply devoted to Gene, and for my own well-being, I couldn’t remain the other woman to the other woman. And so I left.”

His first project after Star Trek was intended to be a Tarzan film...

Growing up on pulp fiction, Roddenberry naturally gravitated toward adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan after the original Star Trek series ended in 1969. His script featured a more provocative take on Tarzan, which became an issue when budget cuts downgraded the project to a TV movie. Roddenberry’s version was deemed too risqué for television, leading to its cancellation.

...But it ultimately turned into a sexploitation film.

With Star Trek temporarily shelved and recently divorced, Roddenberry needed income, leading to his first post-Star Trek project: 1971’s Pretty Maids All in a Row. This sexploitation film, which he wrote and produced, was directed by Roger Vadim (Barbarella) and starred Rock Hudson as a high school counselor and football coach who seduces and occasionally murders his students. Star Trek actors James Doohan (Scotty) and Bill Campbell (Trelane from “The Squire of Gothos”) made brief appearances.

He envisioned a Star Trek movie where Kirk battled an alien resembling Jesus.

In the mid-1970s, when discussions about a Star Trek movie began, Roddenberry was hired to write the script. Among his ideas were Kirk confronting an alien impersonating Jesus (later referred to as The God Thing) and Scotty traveling back to the late 1930s after the Enterprise is destroyed by a black hole. As associate producer Jon Povill told The Hollywood Reporter, Scotty’s actions “trigger changes with a snowball effect”:

“His attempts to halt the snowball only worsen the original timeline, though they significantly improve events between 1937 and 1964. World War II is averted, Kennedy survives, medical science advances dramatically, and numerous other benefits make it impossible for world leaders to agree to help Kirk restore the future by reintroducing the catastrophes recorded in the Enterprise’s historical archives.”

Neither concept was approved by Paramount head Barry Diller, but Star Trek: The Motion Picture eventually premiered in 1979.

Roddenberry believed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan deviated from Star Trek’s core principles.

After the first Star Trek film, Roddenberry was demoted to executive consultant for subsequent movies, allowing him to share input but giving filmmakers the freedom to disregard his suggestions. This was evident with 1982’s The Wrath of Khan. In a letter to a friend, Roddenberry expressed that “many of the issues we identified in the script were obscured or briefly addressed in the film, which has become quite successful.” He added that the Khan team “did a pretty good job. A brilliant job? In making ‘Star Trek’ work as a movie, perhaps. In staying true to ‘Star Trek’ values, certainly not.”

He was the first television writer to receive a star on the Walk of Fame.

In September 1985, Roddenberry made history as the first TV writer to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6683 Hollywood Boulevard. However, Star Trek actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had already received their stars in May 1983 and January 1985, respectively.

He played a direct role in bringing Whoopi Goldberg to The Next Generation.

Whoopi Goldberg, a lifelong sci-fi and Star Trek enthusiast, was eager to join Star Trek: The Next Generation when she learned about the casting. Despite her Oscar nomination for The Color Purple, the Trek team doubted her commitment, assuming she was a “film star” uninterested in TV. Goldberg appealed directly to Roddenberry, emphasizing how Star Trek broke barriers by featuring Black characters like Lieutenant Uhura in futuristic settings. “No other sci-fi included us in movies or shows,” she told him. “This was the first time we saw ourselves in the future, and not just as background—she was a stunning, intelligent communications officer.” Goldberg went on to star in The Next Generation and two Star Trek films.

Roddenberry initially opposed Patrick Stewart playing Jean-Luc Picard.

During a 2020 discussion with The Hollywood Reporter, Patrick Stewart recounted his audition for Jean-Luc Picard. “The meeting lasted about six minutes, and it was clear I wasn’t wanted there any longer,” he said. “Gene bluntly stated, ‘What the hell? I don’t want a bald, middle-aged Englishman.’” Even after Stewart was cast, Roddenberry’s visits to the set were marked by looks that Stewart interpreted as, ‘What is this guy doing in my show?’

He struggled with substance abuse.

Roddenberry’s issues extended beyond his personal life—he also battled drug and alcohol addiction. In a 2014 interview, Star Trek writer David Gerrold revealed that Roddenberry “had a problem with substances. It started with alcohol, then marijuana, and later Quaaludes and other drugs. He had this addiction. If he had avoided alcohol and pills, he could have lived well into his 90s. He was a strong man, but substance abuse took its toll and ultimately led to his death.”

He was preparing legal action against Star Trek VI before his death.

Roddenberry died at 70, just before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country premiered. While the studio claimed he had seen and approved the film before his death, reports suggest he returned from a screening (48 hours before passing) and contacted his lawyer to demand cuts to certain scenes.

Roddenberry’s remains were launched into space.

Roddenberry’s ashes were aboard the October 22, 1992, mission of the space shuttle Columbia, which safely returned to Earth with his remains. Later, a portion of his ashes were launched into space during the Celestic Founders flight, recognized as “the first-ever public memorial spaceflight service.”

His legacy extends into the cosmos, with his name immortalized in space.

As the creator of Star Trek, Roddenberry’s influence is reflected in celestial tributes. The International Astronomical Union named a crater on Mars after him in 1994, and an asteroid, 4659 Roddenberry, also bears his name.